Harry potter

Why don't I come with a trigger warning?

5 February 2022 9:00 am

Last week brought the news that some universities have attached more ‘trigger warnings’ to certain books, concerned that students may…

J.K. Rowling and the death of nuance

6 January 2022 3:20 am

There are few good things to say about the public conversation around transgender issues, which all too often shows us…

Harry Potter and the strange absence of J.K. Rowling

3 January 2022 8:19 pm

Harry Potter returned to Hogwarts this weekend for a 20th anniversary special. He was joined in the Gryffindor common room…

The attacks on J.K. Rowling only prove her point

17 December 2021 3:10 am

It is often said that J.K. Rowling is uncancellable. So rich and bankable is the Harry Potter author — now…

Why the targeting of J.K.Rowling is so terrifying

23 November 2021 8:40 am

I know from bitter experience that you don’t have to be a best-selling author to be hounded by the trans…

Harry Potter meets Ikea: Backlot Cafe reviewed

26 June 2021 9:00 am

Harry Potter is a fictional orphan locked in a cupboard by his aunt and uncle, after which he discovers a…

disneyfication

The Disneyfication of the moral universe

27 October 2020 8:29 am

‘I’m sitting here struggling for words and my friend nailed it: “She was our Princess Leia.”’ With those words, Dr…

JK Rowling’s fundamental mistake

19 September 2020 9:00 am

I had my first doubts about Lord Hall, the former director-general of the BBC, when he addressed a group of…

j.k. rowling

Speak up for J.K. Rowling

13 June 2020 1:57 am

Nerds everywhere are frantically googling tattoo removal services this week, as the author who inspired their ink failed to STFU…

Vampire bats, like succubi, prey on sleeping men at full moon in a 19th-century engraving

Creatures of the night: why do we find them irresistible?

29 June 2019 9:00 am

When it was recently announced that Robert Pattinson, who played the vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight films, had secured…

A mess: Fantastic Beasts reviewed

17 November 2018 9:00 am

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the sequel to the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find…

Peter Rabbit ‘allergy bullying’? I’m allergic to all this constant outrage

17 February 2018 9:00 am

I’m often surprised by what people are offended by. Like the makers of Peter Rabbit, the new animated feature from…

Beatles mania! (Photo: Getty)

The best of British — from Agatha Christie to the YBAs

26 September 2015 8:00 am

Is it true that, having lost an empire, we reinvented ourselves as an island of entertainers? Do we channel the…

The shape-shifting Fens, thought to be the landscape of Beowulf and the haunt of Grendel

Spirit of place: the landscape of myth and magic

19 September 2015 8:00 am

We live in disenchanted times. We barely do God, most of us don’t do magic and frenzied consumerism occupies our…

The importance of illustration: Babar et le Professeur Grifaton by Laurent de Brunhoff

Under Harry Potter’s spell: most children’s books have become shamelessly derivative, says Melanie McDonagh

11 April 2015 9:00 am

Go to any bookshop — always supposing you’re fortunate enough to have any left in your neck of the woods…

Barry Humphries’s diary: The bookshop ruined by Harry Potter

8 November 2014 9:00 am

Do fish have loins? Last Tuesday, in a pretentious restaurant, I ordered a ‘loin of sea trout’. It looked just…