ADRIAN J BOAS

The long-awaited package containing copies of my new novel arrived today, its arrival, fittingly perhaps, held up by war. Here is the...

As a child growing up in Australia in the 1950s and 60s, the idea of war seemed extremely remote. The Second World War was hardly over,...

Flinders Street Station 1927, Victoria State Transport Authority, restored by Adam Cuerden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The...

Secret passage leading from the citadel of Tiberias. Courtesy of Joppe Gosker I have never liked confined spaces. It is one of my top...

At the Hanging Rock. William Ford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons When I was growing up in Australia, two unresolved occurrences...

Shortly after my mother died at the age of 88, I took a large portrait photograph of her to be framed. It had been lying about neglected...

Australian soldiers near Ypres. Frank Hurley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons I recently had a molar pulled, an excruciatingly...

Reenactment of the Battle of Hattin. Photograph by Yelena Kon Every summer a group of enthusiasts sets out from near Moshav Tzippori in...

In many ways I am a late bloomer. I began my university studies at the age of thirty-two, my academic career in my forties, and I became...

I think it is a great misfortune that book spines are so narrow. They leave us almost entirely in the dark. All one can generally see of...

My novel, The Sulphur Priest  (Wheatmark 2021) is set in a medieval castle. It has mystery and action, a couple of deaths, and so, though...

from Strappado from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot, 1633. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: from Wikimedia Commons How to...

Academics occasionally write works of fiction, but most often these works are stillborn. Their ill-fated destiny is to be forgotten in a...

After publishing my first novel, The Sulphur Priest , in 2021, a story that was very much bound up in my academic work as an...

It seems that the most splendid things are those the existence of which is most fleeting. Spring is here and already gone, and there is...

Two unexplained episodes of people vanishing stand out in the memories in my childhood. One was the disappearance of an Australian Prime...

The narrow dirt track, deeply ridged from the recent rains, passes uncultivated fields and vineyards where the twisted vines are just...

After failing in numerous attempts at opening an external drive (the tiny white light on the side lit up and flickered like a distant...

The concept of selfless love is a fine one perhaps, but how often is love genuinely selfless? How often do people do purely altruistic...