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The Guardian
25-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
I'd lost my childhood love of reading – but rediscovered it when I set aside my iPhone
Everything changes so everything can stay the same. In the beginning I read a lot. I read paperback books. The Famous Five, the Secret Seven and all that stuff. I had – have, actually – all 21 Famous Five books. They're in paperback, apart from the fifth one, Five Go Off in a Caravan, which is in hardback. A present from my nan. Nice. But I preferred paperbacks. I've never seen the point of hardbacks. They're unwieldy, harder to hold in bed, especially under the sheets when I was supposed to be asleep. In my teens I raced through Agatha Christie, Alistair MacLean and the like, and Reader's Digest too, countless editions of which were lined up beside every toilet in the house. Then schooling started interfering with my tastes and I got into Thomas Hardy in a big way, and other big thick, proper paperback novels. After my A-levels I went cycling in France with a mate, which was a miserable experience, saved only by the enjoyment I got from reading Anna Karenina, the battered doorstop edition of which I still have but am fearful of looking at lest it completely falls apart. Then I went to university to study English literature and had the love of reading sucked out of me. Reading, in my book, was for enjoying, not for studying. I didn't enjoy the studying of it, so I inevitably stopped enjoying the reading of it. Those reading years are a dismaying blur. The only writer to survive the cull in my love of literature was Evelyn Waugh. Everything else seemed to be a struggle. I blamed myself for not being clever enough. When I left university, I all but left reading behind too. I came across Raymond Carver, who I found easy to read and loved very much. And Richard Ford, who I found hard to read but still managed to love. Apart from that, the rest of my 20s and, and my 30s, passed by almost fiction-free. But it all came flooding back, oddly, with the advent of the digital age. The Kindle seemed to free me up to wade back into literature until I was out of my depth and swimming freely again. I'm not sure why this is so. I think it might be that physical books had been triggering strong feelings of intellectual inadequacy from back in the day. Who knows? I didn't care. I was loving reading all over again. But as much as the ebook gave me something beautiful back, slowly but surely it took it all away again. I think the problem has been the smartphone rather than the Kindle. Reading ebooks on the Kindle app on the iPhone rather than on the Kindle itself was too convenient an option. But, just as smartphones relentlessly erode our capacity to focus on life itself, slowly but surely my ability to engage with any one thing on them, certainly anything as long as a novel, drained away as briskly as the phone's battery. So the other week I picked out one of the countless old-style Penguin paperbacks on my bookshelf. It was A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd. Then the peculiarly named Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party by Graham Greene. Then Muriel Spark, Margaret Drabble and anyone else I fancied from shelves at home or in charity shops. I'm back to the paperback format of my childhood and my reading life has begun again. These little beauties are barely 25% bigger than my iPhone and, most importantly, you can't swipe in and out of them. Suddenly I can engage with words again. I put the phone away, open the book, and read, actually read. On the tube, snootily regarding the phone-starers, I feel a bit of a clever dick. This will last until I give in to the temptation to revisit the Famous Five. I can't wait. Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
New York Post
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Princess Diana's bold request was the one thing her designer refused: ‘You are a princess'
Advertisement Princess Diana was ready to put royal protocol to the test to prove she was a 'free woman.' The late Princess of Wales is the subject of the upcoming 'Princess Diana's Style & A Royal Collection' auction, which takes place on June 26 in Los Angeles. It will feature some of fashion designer Jacques Azagury's design illustrations for Diana, and fabric swatches from some of her famous dresses. 'It feels wonderful [to keep her memory alive],' Azagury, who helped Diana revamp her style during her final years, told Fox News Digital during a private preview at The Peninsula Residences London. 'Anything that I can do that's going to carry on the legacy of the princess, I will always do it… It's a way of keeping her alive really.' Advertisement Azagury said he met Diana in 1985 when he was showing his new collection in London. They were introduced by Anna Harvey, deputy editor of British Vogue. 6 The late Princess of Wales is the subject of the upcoming 'Princess Diana's Style & A Royal Collection' auction. Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images 'She immediately put me at ease,' he described. 'She had this amazing ability to make you feel completely at ease in no time.' Advertisement In return, Azagury would help Diana step out of her shell. 'In her later years, Diana embraced this sexier, sleeker look, which was my aim,' he explained. 'My aim was really to just get her out of all these frills and… frumpy skirts that she was wearing at the beginning. As her life was developing, she had to be on the international stage, and it was my job to make her fit there. Gradually, I simplified and simplified her right to the end until there wasn't really that much dress. It was more about the princess and the fit of the dress.' 6 Azagury said he met Diana in 1985 when he was showing his new collection in London. Advertisement According to reports, British royals are subject to strict fashion rules. And as the wife of the future king, Diana was expected to follow them. But as her marriage publicly crumbled, Diana was ready to send a new message using her style. One of the most iconic looks was 'The Revenge Dress,' a slinky little black dress that she wore in 1994, on the same night that her ex-husband, the former Prince Charles, confessed his infidelity on national television. Reports claimed that Diana owned the Christina Stambolian design for three years, but never wore it until then because it was too daring. Charles and Diana separated in 1992. Their divorce was finalized in 1996. And it was during the '90s that Azagury created 'The Famous Five,' a collection of dresses that showed Diana in a new light. 'This is a period when you see the Diana that we all loved, where she was feeling free from her marriage,' said Azagury. 6 Charles and Diana separated in 1992. Their divorce was finalized in 1996. Getty Images 'It was her new life starting. She was fit, she was training. She looked phenomenal, and these dresses were saying exactly what she wanted to say, that she was a free woman. She could wear what she wanted to wear. She moved away from royal protocol with the length of the dresses. It was kind of a rebellion, but not a rebellion. But it was her way of telling people that she's her own woman.' But Azagury admitted he wasn't prepared for Diana's bold fashion request. Advertisement '[She surprised me] only once,' he said. 'She wanted to go super short on the dresses, and we wouldn't allow it, particularly on that blue ['Swan Lake' dress from June 1997]. It was quite a low décolletage and quite short anyway, and she wanted to go even shorter. We just said, 'Look, you're not going to have a dress left and you are a princess. We've got to remember you're a princess.' So it was way short anyway, so that's really the only request we would not abide by.' Azagury said that one of Diana's favorite colors to wear was black, which, for the royals, is typically reserved for mourning. But the princess, who was thriving during the era of supermodels, wore several pieces by Azagury that were low-cut, figure-hugging, and showcased her bare, lean arms. Her 'Venice' dress from 1995 was a bright red silk two-piece featuring a short skirt. The 1997 'Washington' dress featured a deep V cut in the back. 6 'This is a period when you see the Diana that we all loved, where she was feeling free from her marriage,' said Azagury. Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images 'After Diana's marriage, she portrayed herself in a slightly different manner,' Azagury explained. 'She had total freedom… She could wear what she wanted to wear. She was able to wear black, which she's usually not allowed to wear because royals only wear black for funerals.' Advertisement 'So the minute she was away from that, the first dress we made for her… was a black dress we made for her after the Martin Bashir interview… a black sexy dress,' he shared. 'That was her way of saying, 'This is me, this is the new me. I'm confident.' And it had all of those things in that one dress. She treated the dresses like that all the way through.' And as one of the most photographed women in the world, there was no room for error, Azagury stressed. 6 '[She surprised me] only once,' he said. 'She wanted to go super short on the dresses, and we wouldn't allow it.' 'As a designer, my main thing was to make sure that every single little thing on the dress was perfect,' he said. 'She was stepping out of her shell, and she would have 500 photographers surrounding her, so everything had to be perfect, even though the dresses were very, very simple.' Advertisement 'It took a lot of work to get everything immaculate, and that was my job,' he said. 'We never had any mishaps at all. We just didn't want to end up in a circle of shame with a bit of something sticking out. So really, it was my job to make sure that everything was perfect for her.' Azagury created what royal watchers have coined the 'Final Goodbye' dress. It was a full-length black dress highlighting a plunging neckline, thin straps and a high front slit. Diana was fitted for it in London just before she flew to Paris. 'I think it might've been for a Disney premiere, so we wanted to make it more wow than the other dresses and make it really Hollywood red carpet,' said Azagury. 'All that had to be done was to [adjust] the straps. Sadly, she never got back to wear it.' 6 Azagury created what royal watchers have coined the 'Final Goodbye' dress. WireImage Advertisement But her legacy lives on, he said. 'The princess is still indirectly affecting fashion, affecting the other royals,' said Azagury. 'Of course, anytime that Kate wears something that possibly remotely looks like something Diana wore… it always gets compared in the newspapers. So, she's still there.' 'In a way, the dresses that she wore at the time, yes, they were fashions of the time, but they were timeless pieces,' he reflected. 'Any of the dresses that I made, for instance, could be worn today, and they wouldn't look out of place. There's something to say about her dress sense… it went quite deep.' The auction 'Princess Diana's Style & A Royal Collection' by Julien's Auctions kicks off June 26 at The Peninsula Beverly Hills.
The Hindu
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Wild Geese, Hyderabad's new lending library at Nallagandla hopes to attract young and adult readers
A spacious room on the second floor of an apartment complex in Nallagandla, Hyderabad, now houses a modest yet inviting lending library. Surrounded by greenery, the quiet neighbourhood allows for natural light and cross ventilation through multiple window panes. Wild Geese Library (@ named after the Mary Oliver poem, is only a few weeks old. A passion project by Sankeerthana, an avid reader and cinephile, it aims to welcome both young and adult readers. An engineer and former IT professional who later began writing about cinema, Sankeerthana had long dreamt of being surrounded by books. 'It was a romantic dream,' she says, referencing Meg Ryan's character in You've Got Mail, who runs a small independent bookstore. 'But a bookstore was beyond my budget; the next best thing was a lending library.' The idea took three years to take shape. She saved up, found a space in her neighbourhood, and Wild Geese was born. Her eight-year-old son, Vivaan Varma, helped her set up the collection — now over 5,000 books strong. Talking about the relevance of lending libraries, Sankeerthana says, 'When we buy books online, we tend to look for what we already know. A library gives you the chance to browse, get curious, take recommendations and discover something new.' She has observed this shift in her son too, who tends to read what is popular among his peers but becomes more open to other titles when browsing at the library. She hopes Wild Geese fosters the same curiosity in other readers. While a large portion of the collection caters to ages six to 18, there is enough to engage adult readers as well, with books in both English and Telugu. Some are from her personal library, while others were sourced from friends, family, and book fairs such as Abids Sunday Market and 'Lock the Box', as well as second-hand stores in Hyderabad. 'Even when buying pre-owned books, I avoid anything too worn out, and I never pick pirated editions,' she adds. Classics like The Famous Five and The Secret Seven by Enid Blyton, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew,Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, and Tintin sit alongside titles like Winnie the Pooh, Keeper of the Lost Cities, How to Train Your Dragon, Geronimo Stilton, Wings of Fire, Percy Jackson, and books by Terry Pratchett. The Telugu collection was curated with help from Hyderabad-based Anvikshiki Publishers. Sankeerthana's reading journey began in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, with her father's books. Later, while studying engineering, she made regular use of her college library. 'Wild Geese is also a way for me to reconnect with the joy of reading,' she says. The library offers membership plans ranging from one to twelve months. Word-of-mouth is slowly spreading through community groups and residential complexes nearby. As the readership grows, Sankeerthana hopes to organise interactive reading and storytelling sessions to foster a deeper connection with books. (Wild Geese Library is at 202, Sai Orchids, Huda Layout, Nallagandla, Hyderabad. Email: Ph: 7075849255)
