Tag: books

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’.

Is giving up on a challenge a strategy that ever brings comfort? An example from my reading.

July 5, 2025

The illustration – by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff – is from the Harvard Gazette article cited below, but to give up a book because it makes you uncomfortable may not be to ‘bin’ it but just re-shelve it in your mind (source: https://content.news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/10/when-to-quit-a-book/ ). After all the bin in the illustration has a l;ong shadow – … More Is giving up on a challenge a strategy that ever brings comfort? An example from my reading.

This is a blog in which I prepare to see Lila Raicek’s ‘My Master Builder’ on Tuesday 8th July at Wyndham’s Theatre, London.

July 2, 2025

How should we view the fall of a great man in a post-patriarchal age? A blog on preparing to see Lila Raicek’s ‘My Master Builder‘ on Tuesday 8th July at Wyndham’s Theatre, London. I consider some ways in which her play re-sees what Raicek calls Henrik Ibsen’s ‘autobiographical play’, ‘The Master Builder’ [‘Bigmester Solness’]. My … More This is a blog in which I prepare to see Lila Raicek’s ‘My Master Builder’ on Tuesday 8th July at Wyndham’s Theatre, London.

If I were a poet, then I might know how best to thank those who make life beautiful: Gillian Allnut thanks someone for showing her how to see the beauty of a ‘Golden Saxifrage’ and other kindness. This blog is about one poem in Gillian Allnut’s beautiful 2025 volume ‘Lode’. I wish I knew how to thank her.

June 29, 2025

I bought Lode from the Left bookshop in Durham where Gillian Allnut herself works as a volunteer, and I read it through for the first time last night before attempting to ignore the heat and sleep. What buzzed through my mind together with the gorgeous complex rhythmic adventures and associations with recall from past great … More If I were a poet, then I might know how best to thank those who make life beautiful: Gillian Allnut thanks someone for showing her how to see the beauty of a ‘Golden Saxifrage’ and other kindness. This blog is about one poem in Gillian Allnut’s beautiful 2025 volume ‘Lode’. I wish I knew how to thank her.

Authority is a passing thing: The Story of one copy of the First Folio and an exhibition of its story in Durham

June 27, 2025

The First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays could be termed to give an authoritative statement of Shakespeare’s Plays. It does not. We think of authoritative things as things that can’t change. They do and must and authoring statements does not guarantee their infinite extension into wisdom that all must take on as belief. This is the … More Authority is a passing thing: The Story of one copy of the First Folio and an exhibition of its story in Durham

When lifestyle is less about style and more about the precarity of life itself. This blog is based on reading Curtis Garner ‘Isaac’ (2025) Harpenden, Verve Books.

June 25, 2025

Okay, lets deal with the elephant in the room first. When we hear the term ‘sustainable lifestyle’, we are perhaps meant first to look at how individuals manipulate the way or ‘style; of how they live to make it more possuible for that life mode to be sustained over time. It is meant to be, … More When lifestyle is less about style and more about the precarity of life itself. This blog is based on reading Curtis Garner ‘Isaac’ (2025) Harpenden, Verve Books.

Literally fabulous or confabulated – the dream of romance

June 24, 2025

As always with WordPress prompts there seems to be an agenda based on how a word is used in the immediate present of culture. After all only that could explain being asked for ‘your definition’ of a word, as if any words were amenable to purely personal definition and its use by that person validated … More Literally fabulous or confabulated – the dream of romance

Is patience is the name given by Stoics and Christians to ‘the time we waste in waiting and  longing for change’ so that it seems to be of the greatest value of all things?

June 22, 2025

Is patience is the name given by Stoics and Christians to ‘the time we waste in waiting and  longing for change’ so that it seems to be of the greatest value of all things? “It’s very dree work, waiting,” says ‘Old Alice’ in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton of waiting for news of her lost sailor … More Is patience is the name given by Stoics and Christians to ‘the time we waste in waiting and  longing for change’ so that it seems to be of the greatest value of all things?

Let’s say my favourite ‘historical character’ is a mixture of Pedro Almodóvar and Jacques Lacan, who are both ambivalent about mirrors. This blog reflects on stories in Pedro Almodóvar (2025) ‘The Last Dream’

June 19, 2025

Let’s say my favourite ‘historical character’ is a mixture Pedro Almodóvar and Jacques Lacan, who are both ambivalent about mirrors. This blog reflects on stories in Pedro Almodóvar (2025) The Last Dream (translated by Frank Wynne) Harvill Secker London (Penguin, Random House). This blog has to be a bit circumspect about the concept of the … More Let’s say my favourite ‘historical character’ is a mixture of Pedro Almodóvar and Jacques Lacan, who are both ambivalent about mirrors. This blog reflects on stories in Pedro Almodóvar (2025) ‘The Last Dream’

‘… the name dear me the name was the same it was Rose and under Rose was Willy and under Willy was Billie. / It made Rose feel very funny it really did’. The propriety and ethics of name-dropping (and innuendo finding) in Gertrude Stein’s (1939) ‘The World Is Round’ London, B.T. Batsford Ltd.

June 15, 2025

‘… the name dear me the name was the same it was Rose and under Rose was Willy and under Willy was Billie. / It made Rose feel very funny it really did’. [0] The Ethics of name-dropping and innuendo finding in Gertrude Stein’s (1939) The World Is Round London, B.T. Batsford Ltd. I have … More ‘… the name dear me the name was the same it was Rose and under Rose was Willy and under Willy was Billie. / It made Rose feel very funny it really did’. The propriety and ethics of name-dropping (and innuendo finding) in Gertrude Stein’s (1939) ‘The World Is Round’ London, B.T. Batsford Ltd.

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].