Winner to Winner: Bertrand Russell on T.S.Eliot

'One day in October 1914 I met T.S.Eliot in New Oxford Street.  I did not know he was in Europe, but found he had come to England from Berlin.  I naturally asked him what he thought of the War.  "I don't know," he replied, "I only know that I am not a pacifist."  That is to say, he considered any excuse good enough for homicide.  I became great friends with him, and subsequently with his wife, whom he married early in 1915.  As they were desperately poor, I lent them one of the two bedrooms in my flat, with the result that I saw a great deal of them.  I was fond of them both, and endeavoured to help them in their troubles until I discovered that their troubles were what they enjoyed.  I held some debentures nominally worth £3,000, in an engineering firm, which during the War naturally took to making munitions.  I was much puzzled in my conscience as to what to do with these debentures, and at last I gave them to Eliot.  Years afterwards, when the War was finished and he was no longer poor, he gave them back to me.'- The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell 1914-1944.

10th Anniversary

Ten years ago I started this blog as a English Lit student who wanted to learn more about the Nobel Prize Winners of Literature.  I began the blog as a way of documenting my reading but also opening out my passion to the whole world as something of interest to read in an area that few have delved deeply.

Ten years on I am delighted to have so many people reading my work and visiting the website that it's giving me an incentive to make my work even better, more informative and insightful for people who would like to know more about global writing but haven't the time to read the immense amount of books that exist in the Nobel Prize field.  Hopefully it will also inspire you to read some of these great works and gain something precious in doing so.

Reading these books has been a great privilege and I've yet to come across a dud one!  Some of these books have been the best reading material for me and has really given me a broader scope to what literature can do.  This work is truly outstanding.  The main thing I've learned from doing this is that it is utterly impossible to predict who will win this Prize, though I still bet on it for the fun of it.

Thank you for supporting me in this endeavour in which I'm taking more seriously by reading biographies of the Prize Winners and doing more rudimentary research into it.  I want this site to be seen as a relevant resource for those who wish to know more about some of the books by the authors.

If you would like to support me more there are several ways you can do that:

Leave a comment at the end of an post, these can always be suggestions of books I should review.
Share posts amongst your social media.
Become a follower so that new posts will be delivered straight to you.
You can donate to my patreon page, link on the side of the website.
Or you can buy one of my books, also linked on the side of the website.

Thanks again and all the best with your reading/ writing.  Here's to ten years!

Alistair David Todd