Writing about writing about writing about writing
Back in the 1970s, my dad used to contribute short reviews of popular science books to a monthly literary magazine. Looking through those copies of this magazine, which I still have, is like going back into a forgotten world. The magazine was called books and bookmen (they always wrote it with lower-case initials). Bookmen! Such a title would be impossible today. And indeed, men were the main contributors. In the December 1973 issue, for example, of the 45 authors of articles listed on the title page, 3 were women. 6%! And this was matched by expressions and attitudes. For example, a certain Audrey Williamson complains in a letter to the editor that ‘Prof. Rowse assumes I cannot read’. The magazine prints A. L. Rowse’s rejoinder: ‘I did not say that the lady cannot read; I said, she was in no position to judge.’ The lady! But then Rowse was born in 1903. books and bookmen was highly regarded, and the contributors included some of the most famous people of the time: not only wri...