Tag: books

‘Sometimes home is a place you have to discover or construct’. (p. 170). This blog is a reflection on a memoir by Mark Haddon (2026) ‘Leaving Home’.

February 20, 2026

‘Sometimes home is a place you have to discover or construct’ [1]. This blog is a reflection on a memoir by Mark Haddon (2026)’Leaving Home’, London, Chatto & Windus. I have blogged on Mark Haddon before, use the links to read these blogs if you wish: on the first chapter of The Porpoise, on The … More ‘Sometimes home is a place you have to discover or construct’. (p. 170). This blog is a reflection on a memoir by Mark Haddon (2026) ‘Leaving Home’.

‘quibus ille viros, quibus excitat urbes;’. It bores me that we still think of men as stuff to be excited by targeted hate, and targeted hate alone

February 14, 2026

It is an ancient theme, as ancient as the first epics of war between tribes and peoples that certainly precede Homer but refined by the Romans into a dream of men as made of steel, flexed into active form by fire. Hence though Homer’s The Iliad mourns war in telling of it, Vergil’s The Aeneid … More ‘quibus ille viros, quibus excitat urbes;’. It bores me that we still think of men as stuff to be excited by targeted hate, and targeted hate alone

If Édouard Louis were to answer this question, he would date his age and that of his parents not in conventional space or time but in the never-to-be-ended phenomenon of the ‘escape’ of each from the determination of the other, should that ever be possible. This is a blog on Édouard Louis (2024) ‘Monique Escapes’ (trans. John Lambert, 2026).London, Harvill, Vintage.

February 7, 2026

If Édouard Louis were to answer this question, he would date his age and that of his parents not in conventional space or time but in the never-to-be-ended phenomenon of the ‘escape’ of each from the determination of the other, should that ever be possible. This is a blog on Édouard Louis (2024) ‘Monique Escapes’ … More If Édouard Louis were to answer this question, he would date his age and that of his parents not in conventional space or time but in the never-to-be-ended phenomenon of the ‘escape’ of each from the determination of the other, should that ever be possible. This is a blog on Édouard Louis (2024) ‘Monique Escapes’ (trans. John Lambert, 2026).London, Harvill, Vintage.

Losing interest in ‘the double’ in the interests of the polymorphous. Do some themes in psycho-pathological fiction get overworked?: Using as a test case Graeme Macrae Burnet’s 2025 novel ‘Benbecula’.

February 6, 2026

Losing interest in ‘the double’ in the interests of the polymorphous. Do some themes in psycho-pathological fiction get overworked: Using as a test case Graeme Macrae Burnet’s 2025 novel Benbecula, Edinburgh, Polygon. I used to be fascinated by duality – that a thing we thought of as one thing was, in fact, two things: even … More Losing interest in ‘the double’ in the interests of the polymorphous. Do some themes in psycho-pathological fiction get overworked?: Using as a test case Graeme Macrae Burnet’s 2025 novel ‘Benbecula’.

There has never been a greater need to critique the assumption that ‘our world has changed’, than when it is used ‘to justify massive expenditure on the weapons industry again to keep us safe in the new era, the doorway, or threshold, of which is already blocked up with the brand new dead’. It’s always on our ‘to-do list’ but ‘never get’s done’. This is a blog on the urgent new (2026) novel by Ali Smith, ‘Glyph’.

February 4, 2026

There has never been a greater need to critique the assumption that ‘our world has changed’, than when it is used ‘to justify massive expenditure on the weapons industry again to keep us safe in the new era, the doorway, or threshold, of which is already blocked up with the brand new dead’.[1]  It’s always … More There has never been a greater need to critique the assumption that ‘our world has changed’, than when it is used ‘to justify massive expenditure on the weapons industry again to keep us safe in the new era, the doorway, or threshold, of which is already blocked up with the brand new dead’. It’s always on our ‘to-do list’ but ‘never get’s done’. This is a blog on the urgent new (2026) novel by Ali Smith, ‘Glyph’.

What if it were a Sandretto plastic injection moulding machine …? Some initial thoughts on first reading Matthew Rice’s ‘Plastic’.

February 2, 2026

What if it were a Sandretto plastic injection moulding machine …? Some initial thoughts on first reading Matthew Rice’s Plastic. Perhaps the most intriguing poetry publication of this year is Matthew Rice’s volume, a narrative in a series of lyrics each dedicated to a single passing minute of a 12 hour night shift in a … More What if it were a Sandretto plastic injection moulding machine …? Some initial thoughts on first reading Matthew Rice’s ‘Plastic’.

Feel the Fear but do it anyway! Confront ‘Femme-Couteau’: Louise Bourgeois on the ‘bad’, ‘good’ and ‘good-enough’ mother.

January 31, 2026

Yesterday I put online an admiring blog on the new (well!, newly translated to be accurate) biography of Louise Bourgeois (see it at this link) which in this translation is entitled Knife-Woman: The Life of Louise Bourgeois. There is no photograph of the artwork referenced by the title (‘Femme-Couteau’) which is meant to connote knfe … More Feel the Fear but do it anyway! Confront ‘Femme-Couteau’: Louise Bourgeois on the ‘bad’, ‘good’ and ‘good-enough’ mother.

Deconstructing a life that seems to circle around complaints by a creative woman about ‘family’: Is that the function of biography about a ‘knife woman’? This is another blog on the challenging art of the biographer with reference to Marie-Laure Bernadac [trans Lauren Elkin] (2026) ‘Knife-Woman: The Life of Louise Bourgeois’.

January 30, 2026

Deconstructing a life that seems to circle around complaints by a creative woman about ‘family’: Is that the function of biography about a ‘knife woman’? This is another blog on the challenging art of the biographer with reference to Marie-Laure Bernadac [trans Lauren Elkin] (2026) ‘Knife-Woman: The Life of Louise Bourgeois’. New Haven & London, … More Deconstructing a life that seems to circle around complaints by a creative woman about ‘family’: Is that the function of biography about a ‘knife woman’? This is another blog on the challenging art of the biographer with reference to Marie-Laure Bernadac [trans Lauren Elkin] (2026) ‘Knife-Woman: The Life of Louise Bourgeois’.

From irresponsibility to organized competitive play (and / or choreographed display).

January 29, 2026

When I was but a child, the sport that filled those small flickering monochrome and then early colour TV screens was wrestling. It was killed off as a ‘sport’ when it was revealed that most of it was engineered for purposes of exciting spectators with over-exaggerated characters (‘Big Daddy’ and ‘Giant Haystacks’ for instance) with … More From irresponsibility to organized competitive play (and / or choreographed display).

There is a point in reading trees, not just as somewhere – buried in the sense of the word or the product we call ‘paper’ – that contains writing. They bear the scars of human presence and the latter’s need to appropriate nature with alien systems of possession.

January 27, 2026

In an earlier answer to this question I concentrated on ambiguities in the word ‘read’, wherein I inferred (rather than stating directly perhaps) that just because our eyes pass over text, they cannot be really said to ‘read’ that text. I used a passage from a yet to be published book to show that reading … More There is a point in reading trees, not just as somewhere – buried in the sense of the word or the product we call ‘paper’ – that contains writing. They bear the scars of human presence and the latter’s need to appropriate nature with alien systems of possession.

‘I’m not sure how I ended up here … and I see only blocks of text that are unclear like each word is fused into the next …’. Reading is an aspiration towards a communion.

January 24, 2026

Have you ever felt that so much depended on a reading of what is in front of you? I have just made a first reading – fast and furious – through the proof text of a novel not due for publication until, I think, September 2026, Derek Owusu’s The Recovery House, which will be published … More ‘I’m not sure how I ended up here … and I see only blocks of text that are unclear like each word is fused into the next …’. Reading is an aspiration towards a communion.