Tag: book-review

Retrospecting on Edward Burra: This blog reflects on visiting the wonderful exhibition at Tate Britain, London Millbank, on 9th July 2025.

July 14, 2025

Retrospecting on Edward Burra: This blog reflects on visiting the wonderful exhibition at Tate Britain, London Millbank, on 9th July 2025. I am building a large Edward Burra library. Though some items are rather shabby reading copies such as the Andrew Causey Edward Burra: Complete Catalogue  and the Jane Stevenson biography of the artist, the content … More Retrospecting on Edward Burra: This blog reflects on visiting the wonderful exhibition at Tate Britain, London Millbank, on 9th July 2025.

A great novel always takes the trouble to ‘bother me’. The example of Colum McCann (2025) ‘Twist’.

July 11, 2025

A great novel always takes the trouble to ‘bother me’. The example of Colum McCann (2025) ‘Twist’. In it the narrator talks about his own ‘bother’ about his writing and trying to keep it focused. ‘Tell me about a complicated man, how he wandered and was lost. The story would drift away from repair, which … More A great novel always takes the trouble to ‘bother me’. The example of Colum McCann (2025) ‘Twist’.

‘For our family and others like us, separation is an expression of love. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way we think’. This blog is a reflection on distance in memoirs after reading Tash Aw (2021) ‘Strangers on A Pier: Portrait of A Family’.

July 10, 2025

‘For our family and others like us, separation is an expression of love. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way we think’. [1] The obsession with a certain interpretation of attachment theory in Western culture was always in practice racist and a simplification of human neuro-flexibility. This blog is a reflection on … More ‘For our family and others like us, separation is an expression of love. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way we think’. This blog is a reflection on distance in memoirs after reading Tash Aw (2021) ‘Strangers on A Pier: Portrait of A Family’.

The problems of expression with exactitude: how to start thinking about Gertrude Stein as a meta-writer [a writer who writes mainly about the nature of writing].

June 13, 2025

Describe your dream chocolate bar. Used as an adjective here, the word ‘dream’ is usually thought to have the equivalent meaning as, to some extent, clearer adjectives like ‘perfect’ or ‘ideal’, but the force of the meaning of the noun persists, which describes an event that occurs entirely within the person, and with the same … More The problems of expression with exactitude: how to start thinking about Gertrude Stein as a meta-writer [a writer who writes mainly about the nature of writing].

I am passionate about the role of reading and the redemption of material life it carries with it. This is a blog on Ocean Vuong (2025) ‘The Emperor of Gladness’

June 12, 2025

‘The linoleum, too, … is blue. So blue you’ll have the feeling  of being swept away because you are, into a current of corridors intentionally too narrow to turn around in’.[1] Queer writers have so long challenged the false universals of heteronormative stability, and perhaps privileged the discourse of sexual interaction as a panacea  for … More I am passionate about the role of reading and the redemption of material life it carries with it. This is a blog on Ocean Vuong (2025) ‘The Emperor of Gladness’

‘… something between me and the picture felt poised on an edge waiting to happen, the verge of something wild’. This blog is for Joanne, who loves and understands Ali Smith, relating to that author’s republished essay on Munch in book form, ‘So In The Spruce Forest’.

June 2, 2025

‘… something between me and the picture felt poised on an edge waiting to happen, the verge of something wild’.  [1] This blog is for Joanne, who loves and understands Ali Smith, relating to that author’s republished essay on Munch in book form, ‘So In The Spruce Forest’. Some people, and Joanne is one of … More ‘… something between me and the picture felt poised on an edge waiting to happen, the verge of something wild’. This blog is for Joanne, who loves and understands Ali Smith, relating to that author’s republished essay on Munch in book form, ‘So In The Spruce Forest’.

This blog is a reflective take on Seán Hewitt’s 2025 novel ‘Open, Heaven’ New York, Alfred A. Knopf.

May 29, 2025

‘It was  all unfinished and most likely it always would be’. Open, Heaven, which despite having many endings is also truly an unending story, asks us how much we really want our loves to remain open rather than closed to future promise: that ‘life of constant negotiation, movement, agony, bliss’ And we desire this perhaps … More This blog is a reflective take on Seán Hewitt’s 2025 novel ‘Open, Heaven’ New York, Alfred A. Knopf.

Heather Christle‘s (2025)  ‘In The Rhododendrons’: thank you Kaveh Akbar for your recommendation on the book’s jacket that made me buy this. You have great friends.

May 22, 2025

In Heather Christle‘s (2025)  In The Rhododendrons many people (with effects of pleasure and pain or hope and despair) continually strike ‘the same pose’ that made images of a possible past recur. Christle tells us that is what family albums do, but that recurrence or repetition within them can, and perhaps should,  be perceived ‘differently’. … More Heather Christle‘s (2025)  ‘In The Rhododendrons’: thank you Kaveh Akbar for your recommendation on the book’s jacket that made me buy this. You have great friends.

‘But there is no sign of the boy.’ The coming to age of a queer boy told in the third person captures the alienation possible in that experience but that may be all it seeks to show! This is a blog on Michael Amherst (2025) ‘The Boyhood of Cain’.

May 4, 2025

‘But there is no sign of the boy.’ The coming to age of a queer boy told in the third person captures the alienation possible in that experience but that may be all it seeks to show! This is a blog on Michael Amherst (2025) The Boyhood of Cain London, Faber & Faber. I sighed … More ‘But there is no sign of the boy.’ The coming to age of a queer boy told in the third person captures the alienation possible in that experience but that may be all it seeks to show! This is a blog on Michael Amherst (2025) ‘The Boyhood of Cain’.

‘… caught in improper possession of another person’s property’.  Abdulrazak Gurnah (2025) ‘Theft’ is a novel in a great tradition of ‘David Copperfield’ & ‘Great Expectations’.

April 26, 2025

‘… caught in improper possession of another person’s property’.[1] This blog examines the sensibility of the outsider’s desire to belong and have no belongings. Abdulrazak Gurnah (2025) ‘Theft‘ is a novel in a great tradition of ‘David Copperfield‘ & ‘Great Expectations’. Karim, whose growth to total self-possession makes him the main contender pretender to be … More ‘… caught in improper possession of another person’s property’.  Abdulrazak Gurnah (2025) ‘Theft’ is a novel in a great tradition of ‘David Copperfield’ & ‘Great Expectations’.

Visualising passion – approaching J.M.W. Turner’s  attempt to capture the embodiment of desire in ‘Turner’s Secret Sketches’ edited by Ian Warrell (2012).

April 18, 2025

Visualising passion – approaching J.M.W. Turner’s  attempt to capture the embodiment of desire in Turner’s Secret Sketches edited by Ian Warrell (2012) Tate Publishing. I am still cataloguing my books, abandoning many along the way, and have reached book number 3744 of the books I am keeping. The book is Turner’s Secret Sketches, edited and … More Visualising passion – approaching J.M.W. Turner’s  attempt to capture the embodiment of desire in ‘Turner’s Secret Sketches’ edited by Ian Warrell (2012).

Tash Aw’s ‘The South’ focuses upon the lives of queer ‘angry young men’, and even boys grown as wild as El Niño.

March 23, 2025

Growth and hunger create awareness of ‘hollow spaces that never existed before’: Tash Aw’s The South focuses upon the lives of queer ‘angry young men’, and even boys grown as wild as El Niño. But are both responding to an extraordinary and new  ‘physical evolution stronger than’ any of us or merely to ‘the effect … More Tash Aw’s ‘The South’ focuses upon the lives of queer ‘angry young men’, and even boys grown as wild as El Niño.