Hans Christian Andersen / The Wild Swans XLISTO 013

THE 

WILD SWANS 

A fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen

Far away in the land to which the swallows fly when it is winter, dwelt a king who had eleven sons, and one daughter, named Eliza. The eleven brothers were princes, and each went to school with a star on his breast, and a sword by his side. They wrote with diamond pencils on gold slates, and learnt their lessons so quickly and read so easily that every one might know they were princes. Their sister Eliza sat on a little stool of plate-glass, and had a book full of pictures, which had cost as much as half a kingdom. Oh, these children were indeed happy, but it was not to remain so always. Their father, who was king of the country, married a very wicked queen, who did not love the poor children at all. They knew this from the very first day after the wedding. In the palace there were great festivities, and the children played at receiving company; but instead of having, as usual, all the cakes and apples that were left, she gave them some sand in a tea-cup, and told them to pretend it was cake. The week after, she sent little Eliza into the country to a peasant and his wife, and then she told the king so many untrue things about the young princes, that he gave himself no more trouble respecting them.

The elephant whisperer of Nepal

 

Image by ICIMOD via Nepali Times, used with permission.

The elephant whisperer of Nepal

Saluting a citizen scientist who protects wild elephants

Written byNepali Times

Posted 23 May 2022 12:44 GMT 

This article by Biraj Adhikari, a Research Fellow of ecosystem services at ICIMOD, was first published in Nepali Times. A shortened and edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Rumaan Alam / ‘Reading JD Salinger now is like running into that particular ex at a cafe’

 

The 

Books

 0f my 

life

Rumaan Alam: ‘Reading JD Salinger now is like running into that particular ex at a cafe’

This article is more than 5 months old

The US author on his early love of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, the genius of Judy Blume, and finding perfection in Agatha Christie and Gustave Flaubert

Rumaan Alam

Friday 5 September 2025

My earliest reading memory
I recall lying in the bath, age seven or eight, reading the final page of Judy Blume’s Starring Sally J Freedman As Herself, then turning to the novel’s opening and beginning again. Memory is untrustworthy, but Blume is a genius who has that effect on her reader.

My favourite book growing up
We’re always growing up; we’re always choosing a new favourite. For me, once, this was Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy. Later I’d have said JD Salinger’s Nine Stories. Later, still, John Cheever’s Collected Stories, Lorrie Moore’s Self-Help, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, my favourite changing as I did. Maybe I’m finally old enough to understand that favourite is impossible to designate. Or maybe I’d say my current favourite is Don DeLillo’s Underworld.

The book that changed me as a teenager
I encountered Salinger at 13. I began with The Catcher in the Rye (as most do) and read through his (too small) oeuvre. I wrote bad stories ripping him off; he somehow made me believe that I could be a writer, too.

The writer who changed my mind
I think reading William Faulkner – I’d have been 16 or so – was the first time I understood that the pleasure one finds in a book might not be in its ease. I think that’s what I most loved (and still value!) about the favourites of my childhood: being swept up in story and character and action. Faulkner showed me that there could be delight in wrestling with a sentence, a pure joy in language itself, a thrill in being challenged and confused by a work of art.

The author that made me want to be a writer
My early writing education was just mimicry. And the first writer I remember imitating was Agatha Christie. How I wanted to write a perfect whodunit, with a stately home, a party of interesting people and a dead body. That’s easier said than done.

The authors I come back to
There’s no shortage of these – Don DeLillo, Anita Brookner, Patrick Modiano, Philip Roth, Willa Cather. These are but a few of the writers I can go back to and be thrilled by whenever I need.

The books I could never read again
My relationship with Salinger was like a heated youthful romance. Reading his fiction now is a bit like running into that particular ex at a cafe. I’d rather remember Salinger’s work as meaningful to my 14-year-old self than actually read it as I tiptoe toward 50.

The book I discovered later in life
I’m all for discovery whenever it happens. Books have no sell-by date. They’re always there, waiting for their readers, and it’s silly to carry around a sense of embarrassment for not having got to Moby-Dick or what have you. This summer I read Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary for the first time. A perfect novel! Why did I wait so long? It doesn’t matter.

The book I am currently reading
Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas. My first time with Stein, and I’m reading it slowly while lying on the beach; a luxury, a joy.

My comfort read
Comfort can be different things. In times of stress, I might want something funny, or I might want something that mirrors the tumult I’m feeling in life. The comfort derives, in large part, from knowing that it’s new, that I’m in search of something, that I might discover something other than what I’m looking for. That’s what I love about books – a journey without a map.

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Hans Christian Andersen / The Snow Queen

The Snow Queen

A short story by Hans Christian Andersen

FIRST STORY

Which Treats of a Mirror and of the Splinters

Now then, let us begin. When we are at the end of the story, we shall know more than we know now: but to begin.

Nick Harkaway / ‘I loathed Charles Dickens – it nearly turned me off reading for ever’

 

Nick Harkaway

The 

Books

 0f my 

life

Nick Harkaway: ‘I loathed Charles Dickens – it nearly turned me off reading for ever’

This article is more than 5 months old

The author on his secret theories about Tolkien, the most perfect and terrifying Moomin book, and how his father, John le Carré, inspired him

Nick Harkaway

Friday 19 September 2025

My earliest reading memory
I read The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien at seven, in my bedroom in the deep west of Cornwall. I secretly believed that Rivendell was based on that house, which it clearly wasn’t.

My favourite book growing up
Impossible. I’m inconstant, so it was whatever I was reading at the time. Let’s say Finn Family Moomintroll, which is the most perfect of Tove Jansson’s lovely (and occasionally frankly terrifying) Moomin books.

The book that changed me as a teenager
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, at 14. I loathed it. It nearly turned me off reading for ever. Everyone kept telling me it was a masterpiece and I just couldn’t understand why [school would] set a book about being an alienated child for a bunch of teenagers. “Yes, I know adults are incomprehensible and other people make no sense and loneliness is awful. Why do I need to read about it?”

The writer who changed my mind
Tan Twan Eng. The Garden of Evening Mists is a stunning novel – jaw-dropping, beautiful, intricate, elegant, powerful, touching – and made me see how books about terrible things can be uplifting to the point of transcendent. As I type that it seems obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me then.

The book that made me want to be a writer
Ah. That one’s a little bit tricky, because I’ve always been immersed in writing. I can tell you that Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is so good that it infuriated me into starting a new novel, and that everything I’ve read by Michael Chabon has filled me with a furious creative envy that makes me work harder. Jeanette Winterson is some kind of perfect dreamer; Anne Carson and Colson Whitehead always make me feel like I should be wilder, wiser and better. But perhaps the honour has to go to A Murder of Quality by John le Carré. My father gave me a leather-bound copy when I was very young, and the smell of the pages and the beauty of the object itself made me believe in the magic of words.

The book I came back to
We’re back with Great Expectations. It really is a brilliant book, but we shouldn’t force it on teenagers. That’s not to say they shouldn’t read it if they want to. But just because it’s about young people doesn’t mean it’s written for them; it’s written for the rest of us remembering who we were.

The book I reread
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. I read it as a child and scared myself sleepless, then at university and chuckled at my tween fear, and again more recently, conscious at last not of the monstrosity of the hound, but the astounding cruelty of its master.

The book I could never read again
Almost every book I read for fun between seven and 17. I actually don’t remember what they were, so I can’t name and shame, but that is some kind of judgment in itself. To highlight instead some of the notable exceptions: Susan Cooper’s Dark Is Rising sequence, Patricia McKillip’s harpist trilogy, and all things William Gibson.

The book I discovered later in life
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges.

The book I am currently reading
Matt Wixey’s Basilisk. And, with my kids, I’m reading the latest Amari Peters book, Amari and the Despicable Wonders by BB Alston. It’s very tense and I don’t know how she can possibly win through!

My comfort read
Spook Country by William Gibson, who I mentioned earlier, of course, but this is one of his later books and for me it’s just superb. The audiobook, read by Robertson Dean, is also a gem. The texture of the prose, the encounter between mundane and strange, the magic of story … it’s a good place to spend an evening.

 Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway is published by Penguin. 

THE GUARDIAN