Tag: book-review

This is a blog on Ben Markovits (2025) ‘The Rest Our Lives’ London, Faber.

August 19, 2025

Thinking of his father, John Layward, who has ‘He is gone into the world of light,’ inscribed on his flat grave, the protagonist and narrator, Tom Layward, of Ben Markovits’ Booker-longlisted novel wonders whether that proud man’s ‘hatred of religion’ ‘was only important to him in the context of the battle with my mother’. So … More This is a blog on Ben Markovits (2025) ‘The Rest Our Lives’ London, Faber.

If I use the verb ‘to write’, do I really mean that what I write must or should endure

August 17, 2025

The best known quatrain of Persian Poetry, in stolid Victorian translation is that from what The Poetry Foundation calls the ‘Rubáiyát, his collection of hundreds of quatrains (or rubais), was first translated from Farsi into English in 1859 by Edward Fitzgerald’, attributed to Omar Khayyam. There are versions on versions of the quatrains translated, not least by Fitzgerald . … More If I use the verb ‘to write’, do I really mean that what I write must or should endure

This is a blog on the role of endings in the modern metafictional novel and the light shed on that role by Maria Reva (2025) ‘Endling’ London, Virago Press.

August 15, 2025

‘She felt a small pang of resentment: the endling’s last moments on Earth, and it pined over not getting laid. Of course this was normal. If anything, endlings should pine all the louder for the end of their species. … // At least gastropods yearned in silence, …’.[1] This is a blog on the role … More This is a blog on the role of endings in the modern metafictional novel and the light shed on that role by Maria Reva (2025) ‘Endling’ London, Virago Press.

On the Edinburgh book festival: why I still go and on whether I should keep going.                  

August 11, 2025

The Edinburgh Book Festival may be anybody’s kicking post for at least some of the time. For years, it was supported financially by Baillie Gifford with known assets in some very illiberal regimes and ethically if not legally (as far as we know) shady practices. That tie now severed, the right wing press led by … More On the Edinburgh book festival: why I still go and on whether I should keep going.                  

This is a blog on Natasha Brown (2025) ‘Universality’.

August 8, 2025

“Working families, small communities, traditional British industries and jobs. We used to value these things”.[1]Sometimes we wonder if this was said by a fictional columnist or own present prime Minister (and I won’t answer ‘whether I have a problem with our prime minister’: Natasha Brown meant Rishi Sunak; I, of course, mean Sir Keir Starmer’s … More This is a blog on Natasha Brown (2025) ‘Universality’.

New directions in the queer novel. In a recent example from those written by the ‘best novelists’ of our time, William Rayfet Hunter’s debut novel ‘Sunstruck’ (2025), the story is often about the dual function of telling stories in society.

July 22, 2025

The job of the novel is not only to tell a story but to edit it to fit some kind of purpose that is its raison d’être. Yet simultaneously questioning its own purpose has also been a feature of the novel since its inception in the best novelists. In a recent example from those written … More New directions in the queer novel. In a recent example from those written by the ‘best novelists’ of our time, William Rayfet Hunter’s debut novel ‘Sunstruck’ (2025), the story is often about the dual function of telling stories in society.

Let’s answer this prompt as if Thomas Mann were justifying his last novel: the ultimate game – of confidence tricks and roleplay. This blog holds my thoughts on  Thomas Mann (trans. Denver Lindley) [1997 Minerva Paperback from ed. of 1954] ‘Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: Memoirs Part 1’.

July 18, 2025

Let’s answer this prompt as if Thomas Mann were justifying his last novel: the ultimate ‘game’ – of confidence tricks and roleplay. In a diary entry from 25th November 1950, Thomas Mann calls his final and unfinished picaresque novel Felix Krull ‘my homosexual novel’. Yet the case for seeing it as that perhaps reduces to … More Let’s answer this prompt as if Thomas Mann were justifying his last novel: the ultimate game – of confidence tricks and roleplay. This blog holds my thoughts on  Thomas Mann (trans. Denver Lindley) [1997 Minerva Paperback from ed. of 1954] ‘Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: Memoirs Part 1’.

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’