A letter, a book and two paintings by Tracey Emin; right, Ruth Fairlight’s copy of The Colossus Ruth Fainlight and Alan Sillitoe were both in their twenties when they met in a bookshop in Nottingham.

Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden, editors The Letters of T. S. EliotVolume 10: 1942–19441,136pp. Faber. £60. During the Second World War, Shamley Wood House in Surrey was a place of refuge for T. S. E

In my current project, I don’t quite know what I’m doing, though I’m hoping to strike lucky. As with metal detectorists and those who browse the shelves of charity shops for Ming vases, my hope is alw

I have the problem with bookcases that everyone has, namely their failure to expand indefinitely to accommodate the permanent leakage of books from the outside world into my house. When I downsized to

Blinding: The Left Wing Mircea Cǎrtǎrescu, trans. by ...

Enrique Vila-Matas Montevideo Translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott 240pp. Yale University Press. £14.99 (US $27). “Words are poor mountaineers and poor miners”, lamented the young Franz Kaf