The Pontius Pilate Project
A week from today, I’ll be starting a new course: an MPhil in New Testament studies. My dissertation project is about Pontius Pilate, specifically his representation in the accounts of … Continue reading
A History of Britain in 21 Women by Jenni Murray
Sometimes it feels like we are going backwards. In the introduction of her “personal selection” of the 21 women who shaped the history of Britain, Jenni Murray reminds us that … Continue reading
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
Margot Lee Shetterly’s father was an engineer, defying the odds stacked against him in segregation-era America. As she says in the introduction to her book, “as late as 1970, just … Continue reading
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English
As for me, if I stumble, the mercies of God shall be my eternal salvation. If I stagger because of the sin of flesh, my justification shall be by the … Continue reading
Graphic Novels Week on VL
When I was younger, comic books were flimsy things full of muscular superheroes. At some point in the last quarter century, they became much more substantial, not just as physical … Continue reading
Coming Up This Week
We’re cooking with gas this week on Vulpes Libris! On Monday, Jackie follows John Grisham’s evolution through Gray Mountain. On Wednesday, Sharon enjoys a novel set in Spain before the civil war. … Continue reading
The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in Our Times by Barbara Taylor
Barbara Taylor is a well-respected historian and writer, and is a Professor at Queen Mary, University of London. She is the author of several books, including an award-winning work on … Continue reading
Coming Up as June Begins
The beginning of June is considered the start of summer, so it’s appropriate that we have a post on the very summery sport of surfing, as Book Fox Lisa launches … Continue reading
An Interview with Michael Broers: Part II
At the end of Part I of this interview with Napoleon expert Michael Broers, we left Napoleon in Paris: aimless, depressed, and stuck at the Topographic Bureau. Join us now as … Continue reading
VL Q&A: Chris Ward, author of Living on the Western Front (Annals and Stories, 1914-1919)
What I wanted to do was disrupt narrative structures and upset realist expectations by imitating an early-medieval annalist… but it proved impossible. In the first place because every sentence is … Continue reading
First World War, a website
We are so used to thinking of WW1 as a precursor for the Second, that it’s a bit startling to find something devoted only to that “war to end all … Continue reading
The Pleasures of the Imagination
This book by John Brewer (a reissue from its 1997 incarnation) is a monster. It’s a huge, magnificently illustrated and pleasingly well produced slab of a book on eighteenth-century British … Continue reading
Singapore high-rise
Lee Jing-Jing’s novel If I Could Tell You is haunting, affectionate, honest, and placidly down-to-earth. I couldn’t put it down: her writing is beautifully subtle, and the story winds you … Continue reading
It’s complicated
When I was 14 or so, the Russians invaded Afghanistan, and I thought, this is it, the next world war. I remained nervous about the Middle East at the back … Continue reading
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