By far the most-read post on this blog has been a very simple one – a list of Irish literary magazines. The original post I compiled in 2022, and an updated version in 2023, have clocked up o…

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This exhibition from the University of Reading’s Special Collections shares never-before-seen personal papers of beloved author James Joyce from our Solange and Stephen James Joyce Collection. Explore...

The reader is transported by Heaney’s illuminating memory: we’re in a school, a photographer is visiting and the girls are having their picture taken

“Back to back like in the good old days,” Keanu Reeves as Estragon says to Alex Winter as Vladimir; then they shout something together that makes the audience explode in cheers and laughter. Was this an ad-lib from “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure?” I’ve seen “Waiting for Godot” many times, but I’d never seen any of the Bill & Ted movies the two actors had done together, so when I got home, I rented the first one, which in 1989 helped launch Keanu Reeves as a movie star when barely in his twenties.

***** Peter Robinson is currently Professor English and American Literature at the University of Reading, and poetry editor for Two Rivers Press and The Fortnightly Review. The author of many books…

Laura Salisbury David Pattie Arka Chattopadhyay The latest in the series of seminars from the Samuel Beckett Early Career Scholars Initiative has been announced. Titled With and Beyond Beckett: Dev…

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Our Samuel Beckett Collection is the largest in the world and is officially Designated by Arts Council England as an outstanding collection.

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Below is a calendar of New York theater opening* in September, including three plays on Broadway, two of them starry revivals: Keanu Reeves making his Broadway debut in “Waiting for Godot”  and Bobby Cannavale, James Corden and Neil Patrick Harris in “Art.” The third, “Punch,” a new play by James Graham based on a true story, features a cast that includes Victoria Clark. See Sept 9 Sept 10 Sept 12 Sept 16 Sept 21 Sept 25 Sept 28 Sept 28 Sept 29 Julio Torres makes his debut Off Broadway, where there are new plays written by John Leguizamo (who also stars), Tim Blake Nelson (starring Elizabeth Marvel), "Eureka Day" playwright Jonathan Spector, and "the Rhinebeck Panorama" playwright Richard Nelson (in Ukrainian!), as well as a performance piece about performance by Eisa Davis, a reimagined Ibsen, and theatrical portraits of opera star Maria Callas, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and fashion designer Alexander McQueen (starring Bridgerton's Luke Newton.)