James WardFeb 8, 20203 minWaterstones and how it caught me by surpriseAbout two years ago, I went to London with my wife to look at some Chinese porcelain in the British museum. There’d been a programme...
James WardMay 26, 20194 min‘Capturing life’It is often said of the greatest novels that they ‘capture life’, and this has probably been an ambition of most major authors. The...
James WardApr 23, 20199 minSeven reasons to suspect War and Peace may not be the greatest novel ever written(Warning: contains spoilers!) As far as I know, it was John Galsworthy that first explicitly called War and Peace “the greatest novel...
James WardJun 3, 20183 minMarxists: turn away now.Yesterday, The Communist Manifesto arrived for me in the post, courtesy of ‘World of Books’, an accredited EBay seller. A little green...
James WardMay 20, 20184 minMy sinister bookshelvesI bought my wife a year’s membership of the National Trust for Christmas. Of course, because I can’t expect her to go visiting old houses...
James WardNov 15, 20173 minRussian ‘interference’ in our elections. Who cares?So finally. Yesterday, Mrs May announced that she believes Russia interferes in western politics; today, Ciaran Martin, the founding...
James WardSep 19, 20173 minThe triumph of memoir fictionIt was Mark Twain who first said, “Write what you know”. “What you know” could include a lot of things, but Twain’s prescription is often...
James WardSep 12, 20175 minSlim novels“When the book wars sweep across the galaxy, and the blood of publishers runs down the gutters of every interstellar metropolis, the...
James WardSep 5, 20175 minThe religious story of the novelIn 2006, a community action group in Tower Hamlets launched a campaign to prevent a film production of Monica Ali’s bestselling novel,...
James WardAug 15, 20174 minThe Man Booker Prize: where did it all go wrong?Who won the Man Booker prize last year? Or the year before? Difficult to say. At least, without Google. Difficult to say anything much...
James WardAug 8, 20173 minBond’s two greatest weaknesses, or why the franchise may need a new Roger Moore…007 is the world’s most successful film franchise. Fifty years and counting, and doubly unique in being directly descended from its...
James WardAug 2, 20172 minStrange reading 1: Sulla and the satyrEvery now and then, you come across something in literature that makes you stop and wonder. If it’s a ‘classic’ you’re reading, often...
James WardJul 25, 20172 minChild and Reacher and a guy called RaymondIt ought to be possible to find lots of Lee Child novels at car boot sales and charity shops. After all, he has millions of fans. (For...
James WardJul 8, 20163 minThe Malign Pyramid of Derivation: From John Le Carre and Len Deighton to James WardLately, I’ve been trying to work out a way of advertising my books on Facebook. I’m not naturally a very sociable sort of person. Don’t...
James WardOct 12, 20143 minWhen Does a Very Good Novel Become “Great”?Private Eye’s “Bookworm” described Jonathan Franzen’s 2010 novel, Freedom, as too domestic to be great. Or words to that effect. I didn’t...
James WardSep 6, 20143 minMeasurable versus UnmeasurableSome readers may be familiar with a US website called The Art of Manliness, devoted to all things gentlemanly. A couple of years ago, two...