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When Wantage had a railway link

11:53am Wednesday 15th May 2013

Wantage Road railway station was once a busy stop on the mainline from London to the West Country.

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Guide to dog-friendly pubs

11:46am Wednesday 15th May 2013

There’s no need to leave your dog at home when it’s time for the family holiday. There are loads of superb dog-friendly pubs, hotels and B&Bs if you know where to look.

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Jane Austen & Adlestrop

4:56pm Tuesday 7th May 2013

Victoria Huxley, who lives in Adlestrop, has opened a new window on the Cotswolds family of Jane Austen, and their influence on her work.

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Victor Boys by Tony Blackman

4:53pm Tuesday 7th May 2013

This country once had three V bombers, built to help keep the UK safe during the Cold War: the Valiant, the Vulcan and the Victor.

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William Burges and the High Victorian Dream

4:50pm Tuesday 7th May 2013

J. Mordaunt Crook on William Burges, reviewed by Geoffrey Tyack

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Orwell's Golden Country

4:25pm Tuesday 7th May 2013

W hen the hero of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four wants to escape his ugly totalitarian society, he goes to a bluebell wood. There he finds ‘The Golden Country’ he has dreamed of all his life — an old pasture with a path, a molehole here and there. Somewhere nearby is a clear stream where dace swim beneath willows.

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History man

4:23pm Tuesday 7th May 2013

All that is left of Deddington Castle is a ditch, a mound and a grassy bank topped with trees, but thisparadise for dog walkers was once the headquarters of the second most powerful man in Britain, Bishop Odo.

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Office Politics by Oliver James

9:00am Thursday 25th April 2013

James Bond is unlikely to swap his gun for a word processor — yet if, like him, you are able to extract what you want from the environment by being ruthlessly self-serving then you should be able to blast your way past any latter-day Goldfingers to reach the top of the office pile.

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That Sweet City

9:00am Thursday 25th April 2013

Oxford, according to poet John Elinger, is “a curious hybrid of a somewhat decayed South Midland manufacturing town across Magdalen Bridge in the Cowley area. . . , and the historic centre of learning”. Elinger is the pen-name of Sir Christopher Ball, former Warden of Keble college, and he has compiled a poetic tribute to Oxford called That Sweet City, illustrated by Katherine Shock.

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An Oxford Bestiary

2:18pm Thursday 18th April 2013

Science graduate Sophie Huxley, a distant descendant of scientist Julian and writer Aldous, is a gardener for Oxford colleges and the author of the Oxford Science Walk, Oxford Trees and Eric Gill in Oxford, published by her own business Huxley Scientific Press. Her latest is An Oxford Bestiary (£9), a catalogue of the weird and wonderful animals to be seen in the City in real life, stained glass, gargoyles or pub signs by those who keep their eyes peeled, from the ox opposite the railway station to the dodo in the Museum of Natural History.

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C. S. Lewis by Alister McGrath

9:00am Thursday 11th April 2013

Alister McGrath’s fine new biography of C.S Lewis comes garlanded with an unnecessary and potentially misleading subtitle: “Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet”.

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Science of brainwashing

9:10am Thursday 4th April 2013

The author, Kathleen Taylor, writes on the first page of The Brain Supremacy that neuroscience will soon become the most dominant science and its power will allow us to manipulate human nature by changing the brain, hence the title.

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A Treacherous Likeness by Lynn Shepherd

2:33pm Tuesday 30th April 2013

Lying in state in University College, Oxford, is the ethereal, romantic and tragic figure of Shelley, who drowned off the coast of Viareggio in 1822. The white marble statue was commissioned by his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Shelley, as a tribute to his hallowed memory.

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History of the 1970s

8:20am Thursday 4th April 2013

When asked what effect the French Revolution had on history, China’s Maoist leader Chou En Lai is supposed to have said: “It is too early to tell.”

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The Last Runaway

3:06pm Tuesday 2nd April 2013

There’s a lot of running away in Tracy Chevalier’s latest book, The Last Runaway. The first runaway is a young English girl, Honor Bright, who sets sail from Bristol with her sister, to join her sister’s fiancé in America, and to seek a cure for her own broken heart. She finds a new life all right, but also finds herself alone, a long way from home, ill, exhausted, bereaved, and in a household among strangers where she has no place.

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Islands Beyond the Horizon

8:20am Thursday 14th March 2013

Rats have rarely had a good press, but in these fascinating accounts of the near destruction and ultimate survival of the remotest wildlife environments we learn of the key role played by these indiscriminate killers.

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Peaches for Monsieur le Curé

8:20am Thursday 14th March 2013

Sometimes you can tell straightaway if you’re going to enjoy a book. You settle yourself comfortably in your chair, and revel in the language, the words, the story, knowing that this will be a good read.

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A Narrow Margin of Error by Faith Martin

8:30am Thursday 7th March 2013

You learn something new every day. I’ve only just discovered that all the titles in Faith Martin’s detective series include the word ‘narrow’ because she herself lives on a narrow boat. It’s obviously no coincidence that the heroine of the novels lives on a narrow boat too, moored at Thrupp.

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