#camilla-barnes

#camilla-barnes

Morris was a sympathetic historian of empire who became a republican Welsh nationalist, and yet she accepted a CBE, showcasing her complex identity.

To be a clever, bookish teenage girl is to spend a certain amount of time standing on the sidelines, feeling invisible to boys. There seemed to be a natural division: you could be smart or pretty, but you could not be both.

In September 2015, Gayle Newland stood trial accused of sex by deception. It was alleged that she created an online identity as a man and used this character, Kye Fortune, to lure another woman into a sexual relationship, which was consummated repeatedly with the assistance of a blindfold and a prosthetic penis. The woman believed she was having sex with Kye until one day her ring caught on his hat and she felt long hair.

There has been progress in the diversity of texts on offer in the GCSE English literature curriculum, but uptake in schools is still low with just 1.9% of GCSE pupils in England studying books by authors of colour, up from 0.7% five years ago, according to a report. Compiled by the campaign group Lit in Colour, the report says progress is too slow and that

Thatcher rose to power on the back of a campaign to Make Britain Great Again-a promise to reverse the previous two decades of austerity, imperial contraction, and stagnating modernization. By 1979, the country was undeniably in decline-not just materially but on a more ineffable level, too. Divested of the unifying effect of global superpower status, the increasingly dis-United Kingdom's common identity was now an open, and anxious, question.

Admittedly, this one came with a fair few red flags, from the casting of Margot Robbie (simply too old, Cathy is a teenager) and Jacob Elordi (simply too white, Heathcliff, while his origins are uncertain, is described as darker skinned) to the unhinged marketing and crass brand tie-ins. Nevertheless, I was still excited to see it. So why did I leave the cinema not only bored, but feeling a little bit sad?

We are initiated into a world in which historically accurate foodstuffs can be ordered online a half oyster shell, the exposed flesh shining as if with the freshest brine, is 31.25 for a single piece and begin to understand one of the most striking things about this novel: its insistence upon detail, its utter specificity, set against a deliberate lack of specificity regarding the larger details that the reader's mind naturally itches to fill in.

Sophia Stewart poses a choice that many biographers struggle with: "what to do with the boring bits."

You are leaving work, your suit still damp from the morning's downpour, the skin on your palms peeling. You are clutching two supermarket bags, tins of cream soup and tuna knocking against one another. The rain is hard and your anorak is cheap. You are on your way to Stockbridge, to your parents' house, which only your father inhabits now that your mother is gone.

For those unfamiliar with the beloved heroine, Samantha is one of the first three historical characters introduced by American Girl in 1986. Samantha, Swedish immigrant Kirsten and WWII homefront heroine Molly demonstrated courage, compassion and resilience. Along with an 18-inch doll, each 9-year-old character was featured in a series of easy chapter books; kids could follow each fictional story as well as the historical context surrounding it.

As the trophy takes the form of an elusive UFO, Corey Fah an outsider unfamiliar with the baffling inner workings of the system is unable to collect or even confirm the award. Waidner has said that the novel was partly inspired by the experience of winning the Goldsmiths prize for their previous work Sterling Karat Gold, and by the ephemeral nature of success, with its unfamiliar contexts of social power and opportunity.

Jean is, in the words of its author, a novel about "alienation, told from the inside out". Set at a reform school over the sweltering summer of 1976, the heat rises as Jean fights (and fucks) the other boys, conflict and desire coalescing until the novel reaches its conclusion: his decision to walk out of his life for good. Dunnigan explores the ethics of early sexual experiences, British class dynamics and the crushing weight of - particularly masculine - conformity.

Charles Dickens's novels are often criticised for their idealised passive female characters, but as the Dickens Museum now shows, he was, in life and in death, surrounded by formidable, intelligent and independent women. A new exhibition at the museum shifts attention away from Dickens as a solitary genius and instead places women at the centre of his creative world and cultural afterlife.