Category Charles Dickens

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Books, Charles Dickens, Culture, Homer, Sách & Tri thức

Natalie Haynes: ‘I’ll never read anything by a Brontë again’

The author and comedian on the immortal lines of Snoopy, discovering the heart of Homer’s Iliad and her culinary comfort read

My earliest reading memory
Harvey’s Hideout by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban. Harvey is a muskrat with a grievance against his awful sibling. His sister Mildred feels just the same way. I read this at four or five curled up on a yellow beanbag next to the radiator, in Bournville, where I grew up. I honestly don’t think there is a better reading spot anywhere in the world.

My favourite book growing up
Peanuts. I loved Snoopy long before I became an author. But he is an inspiration to all writers, sending a novel to his publishers with an immortal covering letter: “Gentlemen, enclosed is the manuscript of my new novel. I know you are going to like it. In the meantime, please send me some money so I can live it up.”

thanhtoong0
October 10, 2025

Arthur Conan Doyle, Books, Charles Dickens, Culture, David Mitchell, Fantasy books, Fiction, JRR Tolkien, Sách & Tri thức, Tan Twan Eng, William Gibson

Nick Harkaway: ‘I loathed Charles Dickens – it nearly turned me off reading for ever’

The author on his secret theories about Tolkien, the most perfect and terrifying Moomin book, and how his father, John le Carré, inspired him

My earliest reading memory
I read The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien at seven, in my bedroom in the deep west of Cornwall. I secretly believed that Rivendell was based on that house, which it clearly wasn’t.

My favourite book growing up
Impossible. I’m inconstant, so it was whatever I was reading at the time. Let’s say Finn Family Moomintroll, which is the most perfect of Tove Jansson’s lovely (and occasionally frankly terrifying) Moomin books.

thanhtoong0
September 19, 2025

Autobiography and memoir, Books, Charles Dickens, Culture, History books, Sách & Tri thức

Plot Twist: I am related to the real-life Oliver

Oliver Twist is one of the author’s best known creations. But for Nicholas Blincoe, the story is much closer to home. He reveals an astonishing family history

For almost my entire life, I’ve known there’s a connection between my family and Oliver Twist. There’s little chance I could forget it. Charles Dickens’s story has exploded into an Oliver multimedia universe, with as many as a hundred screen adaptations, the brilliant Lionel Bart musical, two current TV shows based on the frenmity of Fagin and the Artful Dodger, and an Audible dramatisation starring Brian Cox and Daniel Kaluuya.

I remember one Easter Sunday we were watching Oliver! on TV when my father snapped out of his post-lunch stupor to announce: “Oliver Twist was a Blincoe. He’s my great-great-grandfather.” The original Robert Blincoe was a foundling, abandoned in London’s St Pancras district in around 1792. He spent his early years in the care of the parish, entering the workhouse at four years old. By seven, he was one of 30 “parish apprentices” contracted to work in a Nottinghamshire cotton mill without pay until the age of 21. London’s parish councils shipped thousands of pauper children north between the 1790s and 1830s, but little was known of their lives until Robert’s memoir. His account of brutality, sadism, sexual abuse and starvation became a national sensation, running to five editions between 1828 and 1833.

thanhtoong0
August 24, 2025