You may wonder–even I have wondered–why I subscribe to the TLS. I began in 2012 or 2013 because of the editor Peter Stothard, a classicist, and the classics editor Mary Beard. At that time the TLS published more classics reviews than did most scholarly classics journals.
Over the years, I have also regularly read the N.B. column by J.C. (James Campbell). It is like receiving a witty, quirky letter by a book maniac once a week, and I’m pretty sure even Ursula K. Le Guin once mentioned it at her blog. He writes about buying tatty Penguins at used bookstores in London, the George Gissing Society, why the BBC should adapt a George Gissing novel, French literature, limericks, book covers, poetry magazines, and the casualties of political correctness.
In the new issue, J.C. announced that this week’s column is his last. Fuck’s sake, what’s going on? It’s my favorite thing in the TLS now. Mind you, he did not include my contribution to readers’ findings of mentions of the TLS in novels and poetry (mine was from Penelope Lively or Anita Brookner, I can’t remember), but I enjoyed his column anyway!
There are so few book columns left. There’s still Michael Dirda at The Washington Post, but who else? Any recommendations? I love columns. And they’ve even disappeared from women’s magazines.