Robert Douglas-Fairhurst Official

Look Closer by ⁦@RobertDFBooks⁩ is already looking like one of the books of the year. Each page demands annotation.

Happy publication day, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst! 🥳 I recommend Look Closer to anyone interested in how literature works (and how being human works). It is the perfect present for any A-Level or undergraduate English lit students, too! Go go go! 👉 penguin.co.uk/books/462430/l…

Publication day!

Well this is a jolly nice way to start the week (and to end a review)... "This is a wonderful book, packed with detail and knowledge but also intuition, warmth and infectious enthusiasm” #LookCloser. literaryreview.co.uk/between-the-li…

Thrilled to receive this endorsement from the brilliant Sir Stephen Fry, a generous reader as well as a writer with a brain the size of a planet. LOOK CLOSER: HOW TO GET MORE OUT OF READING is out this Thursday. amazon.co.uk/Look-Closer-Ho…

Wonderful review of Robert Douglas-Fairhurst's wonderful book on How to Get More Out of Reading. "it is like walking behind a wise old naturalist who, in leisurely flipping over rocks, reveals a whole other reality beyond the immediately visible." spectator.co.uk/article/even-a…

My @spectator review of Robert Douglas-Fairhurst’s Look Closer: How to Get More Out of Reading — in which, like a wise old naturalist leisurely flipping over rocks, he reveals a whole other reality beyond the immediately visible: spectator.co.uk/article/even-a…

Coming soon…

Coming on November 6… LOOK CLOSER: HOW TO GET MORE OUT OF READING (Fern Press), available from your local bookshop.

As my new book (out on Nov 6) is basically a mixture of serious criticism and silly jokes, I am now kicking myself for not calling it Leavis and Butthead.

.@fernbooks has acquired Look Closer by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. The book will be published on 6th November 2025 👇 ebx.sh/r4AnkK

@HarrietRGreen Sure thing - or email if that’s easier (Google my name and it should come up straight away)

@RobertDFBooks hello Robert. Can I send a DM? I’m writing a feature about reading and would love to talk to you about it.

Out on November 6.

@j_amesmarriott Great minds etc. Coming in November…

I love reading and I love advice about how to read. For a while I have been meaning to get round to writing my own reading guide. I finally wrote this about how to read, what to read and why. Link below

@becimay Sorry, I mean “Temps”. I forgot that Proust capitalises the word just in case anyone hadn’t realised that it’s REALLY IMPORTANT.

@becimay That’s up there with Proust. First word: “Longtemps”, last word: “temps”. It’s basically the longest shaggy dog story in the world.

Drafted a thing. 1st word, vile; last word, tremendous. (My first go at putting tremendous in anything). 🔥

Although they never met, a new exhibition puts Austen and Turner in conversation with each other. ✍️ Robert Douglas-Fairhurst spectator.co.uk/article/the-od…

@becimay Oh no! I met her for the first time just a few months ago, and she seemed to be on very good form (and was still as sharp as a new pin).

‘Every time we reread a literary work, we do as if we had forgotten its true ending’ - RIP wonderful Barbara Everett, whom I’ve been reading since I was eighteen ❤️💔

Ta-dah… My new book, coming in November. (Pictured: Marilyn Monroe getting lost in Joyce’s Ulysses, or possibly discovering herself there.) Details on Instagram at robertdouglasfairhurst and fernpress.