Trotsky Q&A: Ian Thatcher

Ian D. Thatcher is Professor in History at the University of Ulster, Coleraine. He previously worked at the universities of Auckland, Glasgow, Leicester, and Brunel. His interest in Trotsky goes back to his undergraduate dissertation, Perspectives on Stalinism: A Critical Assessment (1987). It continues to the present day with articles on Trotsky and Lenin’s Funeral, [...]

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Trotsky Week: opening remarks by Geoffrey Swain

Hello and welcome to Trotsky Week!  By way of opening proceedings, I took my trusty voice recorder off to Glasgow University and asked Professor Geoffrey Swain to tell us why he studies Trotsky… and why he thinks Trotsky should be studied. GS: There’s a difference between why I study Trotsky and why I think other [...]

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Coming up on Vulpes Libris: Trotsky Week

We’ll be talking about Trotsky every day this week as our contributors give their opinions on everything from Trotsky’s literary merit and ideological influence to the value – or otherwise – of his ideas about economic planning.  Join us every day for another perspective on one of the most fascinating, eloquent and provocative characters in [...]

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So Much To Tell by Valerie Grove

This biography, timed to coincide with the seventieth birthday of Puffin Books, aims to tell us something of Kaye Webb, its most successful editor and her life outside publishing as well as her considerable successes in it. It is also, to some extent, a biography of Puffin itself. Adults of a certain age, who grew [...]

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Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler – of lyricism and life

Jeremy Pauling is a bachelor with a passion for making sculptures out of odds and ends, and a terror of beautiful women. So, when his new lodger, Mary Tell, arrives, Jeremy is faced with a challenge he really can’t handle … This is a quiet and lyrical novel which crept up on me and simply [...]

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“The Computer is Dead, Long Live the Book!”

By Alan Cleaver MY heart sank ever so slightly when I read that Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger had found a new use for books – propping up his ebook.  Was this the death knell for the greatest invention ever? Was the product that had lasted for hundreds of years and helped mankind build civilization now [...]

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We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yevgeny Zamyatin completed We in 1921, only for it to gain the dubious honour of becoming the first book to be banned by Glavlit, the newly created Soviet censors. Yet while it remained unpublished in the USSR until Glasnost, a manuscript escaped and has had a lasting influence on literature ever since. It is considered [...]

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Monday Soapbox: My Passion for Libraries

I LOVE libraries! There, I’ve said it. It ought to be on a billboard, in neon or blinking from the Goodyear blimp. On a bumper sticker: I heart libraries. *blissful sigh* Here’s a secret– I go to the library more often than I go to the grocery store. Obviously, I believe in the old adage [...]

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Coming Up This Week

This week finds the Foxes thinking Deep Thoughts. Some of those Thoughts are about two of our favorite subjects–computers and libraries. We’re cosmic, celestial and very vocal this week. It’s all terribly serious for late in the summertime, so we’re just going to have a tall glass of lemonade and chill for awhile. Monday-Jackie tells [...]

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I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

Okay… so I have so many other things I should be reading.  I have a ton of books at my back screaming that they have to be first, for so many different reasons.  I ignored them.  And why?  Hype. That’s why.  Pure hype. You can all call me a sucker now if you like… but [...]

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