Paul Abbott

The great shroud of the sea rolled on – reading Moby-Dick

mobydickbigread.com is a website. It adapts Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick into an online audiobook. The content is rich: what tech executives might call “trendily interactive”, in that there are Facebook groups, hipster cultural events, academic podcasts, and so on. The Guardian is heavily involved. David Cameron, Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and Simon Callow have all

Wanted: A British comic book industry

Viz magazine. The Beano. Judge Dredd. 2000AD… But that’s about it. Why doesn’t Britain have a comic book industry? Try an extended metaphor: Think of all English literature, laid out like a vast library. Ten thousand Romantic novels by Trollope. Cupboards crammed with textbooks on Shakespeare. Ubiquitous thumbed paperbacks of Harry Potter, Narnia, the Lord

Of Masters and men

The President of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron MP, has spent the last few weeks pre-empting Sir John Vickers’ report on banking reform. Tough legislation to split up the banks must now be passed “before the next election”, he insists: it is “right for the country”, and “must happen as soon as possible”. Reading Masters