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Showing posts with label Defence Against the Dark Arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Defence Against the Dark Arts. Show all posts
Tuesday, 8 October 2024

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XXX: Richard Barham's Ingoldsby Legends

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M y first encounter with Richard Barham's Ingoldsby Legends was in the pages of Rider Haggard's exciting adventure story King Solom...
Saturday, 23 July 2022

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XIX: Anthony Armstrong's Prune's Progress

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W hile working on the article about Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon's Kings and Queens ,  I was reminded of Prune's Progress , Anthony A...
Wednesday, 18 May 2022

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XVII: The Farjeons' Kings and Queens

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W hen I was working on the article about the  witty and amusing books of  W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman,   their British history textbook p...
Tuesday, 1 February 2022

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XVI: J. B. Priestley's Low Notes on a High Level

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T he novelist J. B. Priestley has been mentioned both as a reader of and contributor to the Everyman Library  and as the author of Angel Pav...
Monday, 22 June 2020

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XII: The books of Sellar and Yeatman

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T he article about balancing depressing books with amusing and uplifting ones gives Terry Pratchett and Gerald Durrell as examples of peopl...
Thursday, 29 March 2018

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part X: Plus X and Bad Medicine

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T here are two very amusing short stories that I feel impelled to re-read from time to time. One is Plus X by Eric Frank Russell, the other...
Monday, 22 May 2017

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part VIII: Two school stories

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M y investigation of Rudyard Kipling's early life has stirred up memories of two good books about life in boys' schools, one of the...
Sunday, 23 November 2014

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part VII: Charlotte Brontë’s Martin Yorke

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O f all the characters in all the Brontë sisters’ novels, Martin Yorke, who appears in Charlotte Brontë’s socio-historical novel Shirley , ...
Monday, 4 August 2014

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part VI: Two amusing anecdotes

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I have many painful memories of incidents in shops and on buses. I have one or two positive memories to offset the bad ones, memories that...
Sunday, 15 September 2013

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part V: Conspiracy Theory Humour

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I have mentioned how junk food , many TV programmes and junk advertisements on the radio make me feel ill: I just can’t tolerate them.  ...
Tuesday, 3 September 2013

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part IV: Colin Turner’s Born to Succeed

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S ome years ago, while poking around in a charity shop I noticed an old paperback book. Something made me pick it up, and I saw one or two...
Monday, 12 August 2013

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part III: More from Vernon Howard

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I f there are any energy vampires and emotional blackmailers in your life, you may find the following defences useful: • Don’t dump your...
Sunday, 4 August 2013

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part II: Terry Pratchett’s books

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I have found that Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books brighten the atmosphere: they are ideal for driving away black moods and dispersing t...
Wednesday, 31 July 2013

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part I: Vernon Howard’s booklets

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R eading the right words in the right way at the right time can have an effect that is almost magical. Something changes permanently for t...