Ciara Beale

Jan 23, 2025 | cherwell.org | Ciara Beale

As I begin writing, my parents have just walked through the door having finally experienced the cultural phenomenon that is Wicked (2024). My mother is singing something resembling ‘Defying Gravity’. My father, on the other hand, is complaining that the final scene interrupted an otherwise pleasant nap. Whatever your opinion on Wicked, it undeniably defined the tail-end of 2024.

Oct 12, 2024 | thetimes.com | Jo Nesbo |Ciara Beale

Growing up in Molde, Norway, I would often rifle through my parents’ bookshelf (my mother was a librarian and my father was an avid reader). I must have been about six or seven years old when one book cover in particular caught my eye: a pig’s head on a stake. I begged my father to read it to me, not knowing it was, of course, Lord of the Flies. Later in life my father (occasionally prone to exaggeration) remembered asking what I thought of it.

Aug 16, 2024 | thetimes.com | Ciara Beale

Fancy an autumnal potter around the buttery stone and bookish chatter of the Cheltenham Literary Festival? Of course you do. This year’s line-up is cracking: full of witty novelists, booming historians and tear-jerking poets. Here are some highlights to book now.

Oct 21, 2023 | cherwell.org | Ciara Beale

​​It is no mystery that fast fashion is a Bad Thing. I’ve spent a lot of time in recent years thinking about fast fashion, its not-so-nice impacts, and ways to circumnavigate it as someone interested in clothes. As a tween, paying a visit to Topshop or New Look on a shopping trip (remember when we used to do this?) made for a pretty unbeatable weekend.

Jul 8, 2023 | theoxfordblue.co.uk | Ciara Beale

For the past six months, I have been half-arsedly ‘studying’ in sunny sunny Freiburg im Breisgau, nestled in the very southwesternmost part of Germany. The main aim of the year abroad is, of course, to speak the language as much as possible. I expected to come back to England in my first holidays and, either through osmosis or by drinking some chemical only found in German beer, to be totally, beautifully fluent.