other things
editor
I was the Creative Editor of Penguin Classics at Penguin Random House UK for five years, 2016-21.
The much-loved Penguin Classics series is the largest and richest library of classic literature in the world.
I wrote two books about the series and I continue to host the Penguin Classics podcast.
producer
I worked with Heuristic Media to produce an interactive edition of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, in collaboration with Sir Ian McKellen, Professor Sir Jonathan Bate and Arden Shakespeare.
It was chosen by Apple as one of their 10 best apps of 2016.
consultant
I have devised creative cultural experiences for several National Trust properties:
In 2013 I organised a mass pilgrimage to William Morris’s Red House in Bexleyheath;
I developed walking routes for The Roundhouse Birmingham in 2017;
In 2018 I wrote a set of story trails for Belton House in Lincolnshire;
I created a treasure hunt for Greyfriars Worcester in 2018; and
I designed a jewel theft mystery family Christmas experience for Charlecote Park in Warwickshire in 2019.
columnist and speaker
I have written a regular books column for the Idler magazine.
I’ve delivered online lectures for the Idler Academy on medieval literature, Italian literature, Charles Dickens and Jorge Luis Borges.
I have spoken several times at the annual Idler Festival at Fenton House in London.
I was one of two speakers at the Dolce Vita Idler Retreat in Umbria in 2020.
reader
I am an avid and experimental reader:
In 2010 I swam across the Hellespont on the bicentenary of Lord Byron’s crossing, the subject of his poem, Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos;
In 2012 I recreated Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, leading a group of literary pilgrims from Southwark to Canterbury, and
I also cycled 380km across Hainan Island, off southeast China, looking for the Earthly Paradise using a medieval travel guide;
In 2013 I staged a quest for the Holy Grail based on Malory’s Morte D’Arthur,
and I also walked in the footsteps of the poet John Clare, from his asylum in Epping Forest to his Cambridgeshire home;
In 2015 I led a day-long walking tour of William Blake’s London;
In 2019 I read Joyce’s Ulysses in real-time on Bloomsday;
In 2021, on the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, I read The Divine Comedy in real-time over Easter Week;
In 2023, I am leading an international real-time read-along of Clarissa by Samuel Richardson, the longest novel in the English language.