THE 90-YEAR-OLD war veteran and author of biography Forgotten Highlander said last night he was “overwhelmed” by the response to his book.

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Nigeria is close to breaking up and its leadership has descended into a “theatre of the absurd”, according to the Nobel prize-winning playwright Wole Soyinka, who has been leading protests against the nation’s political crisis.

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In 1727 an enterprising lawyer and writer of pantomimes with ambitions to become a leading figure in the theatre staged his greatest coup: a lost original play by William Shakespeare.

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The words Alim Qasimov sang on Friday night at Asia Society were nearly five centuries old.

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CURRENTLY a debate is raging, both in Namibia and South Africa, regarding the plans of DStv to implement a channel showing pornographic movies.

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In his book, Tal Ben-Shahar describes the “arrival fallacy,” the belief that when you arrive at a certain destination, you’ll be happy. But arriving rarely makes you as happy as you expect.

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allAfrica: African news and information for a global audience

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“Two hundred years of words, I will need to describe the destruction my eyes have seen.” Those are the words Jean-Dany Jaochim used to describe his home country of Haiti after the quake.

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Ambroise Thomas’s “Hamlet” returns to the Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday, no doubt to be furiously denounced once again as a travesty of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

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Mr. Dover became known for his willingness to break taboos, from his frank descriptions of sexual behavior to his baldly stated desire to bring about the death of a vexing Oxford colleague.

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But soft, what light through yonder window breaks’ It is the east, and Juliet is… a pensioner. It’s all right, though, because in this version of Romeo and Juliet, which begins at Britain’s oldest theatre this week, the star-cross’d lovers are both in their eighties and living in a care home.

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NORTHERN BALLET THEATRE – WUTHERING HEIGHTS **** EDINBURGH FESTIVAL THEATRE

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What’s Your Reaction’ The bros of “literary fraternity” Alpha Delta Phi (yeah, really…) may not be living up to their noble, stated aims. IvyGate has received an exclusive copy of an email sent to this year’s ADPhi pledges, detailing their hazing lineup.

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My parents were … very hard-working. They had a newsagent and got up at 4.30am, seven days a week. It instilled a work ethic in me.

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Shakespeare is required reading for most of us at some point but, while the texts are freely available, word processors do not make the best reading experience. Alternatively, the Free Electronic Shakespeare Reader includes the text of all 38 plays with some helpful tools.

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Over at my Living Single blog at Psychology Today, I received this request for book recommendations: Hi Bella, I would love to read some fiction,…

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Over at my Living Single blog at Psychology Today, I received this request for book recommendations: Hi Bella, I would love to read some fiction,…

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I spoke with an old friend recently who’s working on an interesting new project. Dennis Downey released a new iPhone app named Poem Flow where…

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I spoke with an old friend recently who’s working on an interesting new project. Dennis Downey released a new iPhone app named Poem Flow where…

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Electric Literature, an online literary magazine devoted to helping short stories thrive in a culture of new media, has made a new book video for one of their most recently published stories… except it’s not exactly a book video.

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Electric Literature, an online literary magazine devoted to helping short stories thrive in a culture of new media, has made a new book video for one of their most recently published stories… except it’s not exactly a book video.

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In what is apparently an effort to correct the glitch that caused the wild discounting of graphic novels on Amazon.com, the online retailer has been forced to remove the buy buttons from all comics publishers distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors. Right now, graphic novels from Marvel, IDW, Dark Horse, Archaia, Image Comics, Top Shelf and other comics publishers distributed by Diamond …

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In what is apparently an effort to correct the glitch that caused the wild discounting of graphic novels on Amazon.com, the online retailer has been forced to remove the buy buttons from all comics publishers distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors. Right now, graphic novels from Marvel, IDW, Dark Horse, Archaia, Image Comics, Top Shelf and other comics publishers distributed by Diamond …

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Book looks back at life and death of Nusch Éluard, French model and artist painted by Picasso and photographed by Man Ray She was the quiet woman of Surrealist Paris and an enigmatic muse that inspired some of the greatest art of the 1930s and 40s. But Nusch Éluard, a beautiful model who sat for Picasso and posed for Man Ray, has been largely overlooked by history since her death in 1946. In a …

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Book looks back at life and death of Nusch Éluard, French model and artist painted by Picasso and photographed by Man Ray She was the quiet woman of Surrealist Paris and an enigmatic muse that inspired some of the greatest art of the 1930s and 40s. But Nusch Éluard, a beautiful model who sat for Picasso and posed for Man Ray, has been largely overlooked by history since her death in 1946. In a …

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Literary great Charles Dickens has mysteriously gone missing in Preston… well, his blue plaque has at least.

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Literary great Charles Dickens has mysteriously gone missing in Preston… well, his blue plaque has at least.

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The contents of Italy’s two national libraries are set to be digitised at Google’s expense and made available free on the internet.

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Ros Asquith on why boys choose simpler books Ros Asquith

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Eleven-year-olds are to learn Shakespeare using techniques employed by RSC actors, and English teachers will be encouraged to let pupils walk around the classroom rather than reading the plays while sitting at their desks.

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Three leading Swedish newspapers and the national broadcaster carried a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a dog’s body after an alleged plot to murder the artist who drew it was unveiled in the Republic of Ireland.

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A £100,000 appeal is launched to save the wooden chalet in Kent in which Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations.

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What’s Your Reaction’ Winning poet Brendon Davis at Saturday’s event.

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We like our gay friends sassy and reasonable. And Juliet Capulet certainly could’ve used a sassy gay friend as she was about to commit suicide. He would’ve doled out blunt advice like, “I think you’re fourteen and you’re idiot.”

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IRANIAN authorities prevented a prominent female poet and activist in her 80s from travelling to Paris to attend an event marking International Women’s Day yesterday.

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Spring came last week and so did its first notable event, though not in a flowering, an emerging or a singing, but in a publication: Richard Mabey published his essays. It might still be freezing outside, but getting hold of A Brush With Nature in early March was like being given an unseasonable spell of warm weather in which everything in the natural world suddenly bursts into life.

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What’s Your Reaction’ [Editor's note: This talk was originally delivered in slightly different form at the St. Mark's Poetry Project on January 25, 2010.]

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What’s Your Reaction’

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The National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth reverses a decision to close on Saturdays.

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Ancient Hoghton Tower could stage more historical dramas after the success of a play about legendary bard William Shakespeare’s rumoured stay there.

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MI5 considered Irish playwright Brendan Behan to be “too unstable and too drunken” to be dangerous, newly released files show.

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It’s 11.45am and the Central Hall in Westminster is heaving with yakking schoolkids. Fifteen-year-olds, with iPods, notebooks and temporarily customised uniforms, file up the stairs chattering like jackdaws, as though at a hip-hop gig.

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The many friends who loved him knew the critic, writer and broadcaster Patrick O’Connor as a polymath repository of knowledge. His subjects ranged from music hall performers to French poster art, from cinema to ballet, and from opera to food. With a forever-youthful sparkle in his eye and a talent for friendship, he was a large cuddly bear of a man, tall and sometimes mistaken for the actor …

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An exploration of the world of libraries and librarians, via a tour of eccentric characters and unlikely locations.

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Apple and Amazon could be creating an interesting turf war over the future of books and whether eBook or print will be the primary launch format. Most major publishers have made deals with Apple for eBook content and have come to an agreement on pricing that may force Amazon to concede to higher prices for eBooks than their current insistence on $9.99.

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Owners wished they’d waited for the Apple offering Punters out to buy an e-book reader seem set on Apple’s iPad, a survey of 3171 US consumers has revealed.…

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What’s Your Reaction’ Books rights to The Other Life of Samuel Johnson were recently acquired by Penguin, which appears to have cornered the market on classics gone wild.

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By your ma a viewer, get free books Looking for a Mothers’ Day gift for your literature-loving mum’ Sony has a suggestion: a special edition e-book reader ready to be loaded with a female friendly digital library.… Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn’t work

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Gordon Brown has long given the impression that he was lukewarm about a war that he did not instigate but in which, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was complicit. Today, facing five and a half hours of questioning before the Chilcot inquiry, he can no longer remain on the sidelines.

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More often than not the bright-eyed ardor of small press youth fizzles into baleful middle age and retreat. It’s sad, but not unexpected given the economic and social realities of the literary world.

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