Essex both famous and notorious, the stuff of tabloid headlines and reality television, consume culture and right-wing politicians, England’s dark id. Essex is also the secret place with a rich history of smugglers and private islands, aritists and radicals, myths and legends. Essex is where the Peasants Revolt began and the Empire Windrush docked and political movements like Brexit to cultural events like TOWIE where Essex leads, the rest of us often follow. The Invention of Essex shows that there is more to this fabled English country than meets the eye. Tim Burrows explains “It’s the New Jersey of England … Continue reading The Only Way is Essex

In 1900 a bunch of Russians boarded Moscow train bound to Paris and at the same time another train full of Parisians left for Moscow. The trains simultaneously reached Warsaw and Paris and the passengers in both trains were convinced that they have reached their destination. For Russians, Warsaw looked as glamorous as the Paris they imagined and for the Parisians, Warsaw looked  as alien and exotic as they imagined Moscow to be. Central Europe is also a region of shared experience of mutual borrowings, impositions and misapprehensions. Right from the Roman Empire onwards, it has been the target of  … Continue reading Ghosts of Empire

Jen Beagin’s new funny novel is set in Hudson, the small town in upstate New York where she lives, known as Brooklyn of the Hudson Valley, its inhabitants are “better-looking than average” and dress “like boutique farmers”, like Brentwood in Essex, East of England, surrounded by open countryside and woodland. Big Swiss is Greta’s nickname, who is tall, and is from Switzerland. Great dressed top to toe in white, that adorable gap between her two front teeth, her penetrating blue eyes. She;s head-turnger, including the heads of infants and dogs. Greta (45), is working in a pharmacy in Los Angeles … Continue reading Sexual theraphy?

One Day Ian Marchant, noted for his books on music, railways, pubs decided to dig around his family history, and stumbled on his seven-times-great great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728. Thomas who like a drink and a game of cards  gave fascinating and immersive detail about his family farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife’s nights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children. Ian focuses on the diarist, a Sussex  Yeoman born in 1676 and discovers beyond the Sussex diary’s bucolic portrait, a subtext … Continue reading Early 18th-century life