The Common Reader

The Common Reader

Home
Podcast
Shakespeare
USA travel notes
Jane Austen
Poetry by Heart
Essays
Late bloomers
How to Read Literature
C19th Literature
The Growlery
Irregular Review
Samuel Johnson
Archive
About
He says the early petal-fall is past
Dawn in Arlington, the Oven Bird in Fountainhead
8 hrs ago • Henry Oliver
The link between art and life
Nabeel on AI and art
May 10 • Henry Oliver
Loved, Jefferson, Exile, Hermit, Brontë
some recent reading (and books I cannot finish)
May 7 • Henry Oliver
Oliver Traldi: Jane Austen and the Defence of Virtue
Austen and liberalism, philosophy and fiction
May 6 • Henry Oliver
1:14:12
Growling in a corner: Samuel Johnson’s lost years
In the life of a man about who more has been written than almost any other, it is the gaps that most intrigue.
May 5 • Henry Oliver

April 2026

A.A. Milne's crossword-puzzle heart in the Hundred Acre Wood
A hundred years of Winnie-the-Pooh
Apr 30 • Henry Oliver
Out of all the indifferences
Difficult writing in novels and poems
Apr 29 • Henry Oliver
Palms, poems, moderns
One novel and two books of poetry criticism
Apr 27 • Henry Oliver
The Whitsun Weddings, Philip Larkin
Poetry by Heart, IV
Apr 26 • Henry Oliver
The Stranger, The Drama, and the criticism of Ben Lerner
Two new films and one great review
Apr 25 • Henry Oliver
The New Dark Ages: James Marriott in conversation with Henry Oliver
8th July Dr. Johnson House, 6.30pm-8pm
Apr 23 • Henry Oliver
Steaming manholes, dolphins, and burnt-out houses
a day in Baltimore
Apr 21 • Henry Oliver
© 2026 Henry Oliver · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture