Tag: reading

This is a blog in preparation for an event in Edinburgh this coming Sunday as Colm Tóibín and Philippe Sands remember the Dirty Warriors that led the countries of Argentina and Chile and ‘disappeared’ their opponents. I want to know more about why all this matters so urgently again, now!

August 27, 2026

This is a blog in preparation for an event in Edinburgh this coming Sunday with Colm Tóibín and Philippe Sands. the essence of my interest lies in the following quotation. ‘The generals were in power then, and nobody stayed out late, even though the cafés and bars in the street around us remained open, eerily … More This is a blog in preparation for an event in Edinburgh this coming Sunday as Colm Tóibín and Philippe Sands remember the Dirty Warriors that led the countries of Argentina and Chile and ‘disappeared’ their opponents. I want to know more about why all this matters so urgently again, now!

‘The seams are pulled tight, the threads will surely begin to break. But is it, if they’re honest, not a little thrilling?’ This is a blog on Rebecca Perry (2026) ‘May We Feed The King’.

August 26, 2026

‘The seams are pulled tight, the threads will surely begin to break. But is it, if they’re honest, not a little thrilling?’[1] The threat of something excessive that will break through the fabric covering it, scattering every thread (even of narrative) that holds it together is only one of the indicators of worlds that fall … More ‘The seams are pulled tight, the threads will surely begin to break. But is it, if they’re honest, not a little thrilling?’ This is a blog on Rebecca Perry (2026) ‘May We Feed The King’.

Agathe, the first-person narrator of ‘The Vivisectors’ tells us that she has ‘never been good at …bringing disparate events into a cohesive narrative’ , such that either its parts looked like statues standing independently, thus to be gazed at or mixed up as if they were an ‘inchoate mass’. This is a blog on Missouri Williams (2026) ‘The Vivisectors’.

August 23, 2026

Some books can be read till their end but still not be ‘finished’. Agathe, the first-person narrator of The Vivisectors tells us that she has ‘never been good at …bringing disparate events into a cohesive narrative’ , independently, thus to be gazed at or mixed up as if they were an ‘inchoate mass’. Perhaps you … More Agathe, the first-person narrator of ‘The Vivisectors’ tells us that she has ‘never been good at …bringing disparate events into a cohesive narrative’ , such that either its parts looked like statues standing independently, thus to be gazed at or mixed up as if they were an ‘inchoate mass’. This is a blog on Missouri Williams (2026) ‘The Vivisectors’.

The best books show that erasure is not an option but seeing all events as a part of a dynamic process to which we change our response, or even find atonemt for, is. August 17th Day Four in Edinburgh : At the Book Festival thinking about Two Queer books about transition and our response to it (Kae Tempest & Dean Atta), and accepting a New Cemetery with Simon Armitage.

August 19, 2026

The best books show that erasure is not an option but seeing all events as a part of a dynamic process to which we change our response, or even find atonemt for, is. August 17th Day Four in Edinburgh : At the Book Festival thinking about Two Queer books about transition and our response to … More The best books show that erasure is not an option but seeing all events as a part of a dynamic process to which we change our response, or even find atonemt for, is. August 17th Day Four in Edinburgh : At the Book Festival thinking about Two Queer books about transition and our response to it (Kae Tempest & Dean Atta), and accepting a New Cemetery with Simon Armitage.

Do Booker winners become so for a reason? The 2026 Longlist came out on 28 July

July 29, 2026

Do Booker winners become so for a reason? The 2026 Longlist came out on 28 July The question is open. Each year I set out to read at least some of the books. Here is the list for this year, which I will update as I progress through my reading and responses: 2026 Booker Longlist … More Do Booker winners become so for a reason? The 2026 Longlist came out on 28 July

Let’s assume that ‘who we are’ can release an agency that shapes us beyond ‘who we are and were’ into some refined or reconfigured version of that self in the near or distant future. However, it can only do this by its response to experience. Do novelists deal with the kind of problem any more?

July 7, 2026

Let’s assume that ‘who we are’ can release an agency that shapes us beyond ‘who we are and were’ into some refined or reconfigured version of that self in the near or distant future. However, it can only do this by its response to experience. Do novelists deal with the kind of problem any more? … More Let’s assume that ‘who we are’ can release an agency that shapes us beyond ‘who we are and were’ into some refined or reconfigured version of that self in the near or distant future. However, it can only do this by its response to experience. Do novelists deal with the kind of problem any more?

The answer to whether one is a ‘lifelong learner’ is the title of the latest novel by Kae Tempest, namely ‘Having Spent Life Seeking’: as for what we seek to learn is it this? – ‘How to get by without ever getting anywhere, when getting through a minute was infinite; but every ending achieved was still only the beginning’.

July 4, 2026

The answer to whether one is a ‘lifelong learner’ is the title of the latest novel by Kae Tempest, namely ‘Having Spent Life Seeking’: as for what we seek to learn is it this? – ‘How to get by without ever getting anywhere, when getting through a minute was infinite; but every ending achieved was still … More The answer to whether one is a ‘lifelong learner’ is the title of the latest novel by Kae Tempest, namely ‘Having Spent Life Seeking’: as for what we seek to learn is it this? – ‘How to get by without ever getting anywhere, when getting through a minute was infinite; but every ending achieved was still only the beginning’.

Invited to imagine ‘your life’ as a book, the convenient thing about what you’d call a ‘chapter’ in it, is that it ends and pauses before another chapter begins. Is that because your life changed at some point or because, after the event, you want to write it as if it had?

July 2, 2026

One of the great beauties of writing an autobiography, a written story of the life you have passed thus far, is that, in writing it, you have the advantage of interpreting it, or any part of it, with a different view of what it all means now, or should as far as you are concerned … More Invited to imagine ‘your life’ as a book, the convenient thing about what you’d call a ‘chapter’ in it, is that it ends and pauses before another chapter begins. Is that because your life changed at some point or because, after the event, you want to write it as if it had?

Memes are sometimes nothing more than rhythms in the memory. John Dyer, the hero of Nicholas Shakespeare (2026) ‘Frame 37’, uses the phrase, ‘… nothing ever disappears completely, and when it returns it does so in exaggerated form’.  This blog considers whether it is the purpose of ‘good stories’ to locate the source of truth of an incomprehensible universe, but to continually suggest that this truth runs like ‘a non-verbal poetry’ with a ‘rhythm that feels fresh’ and might wake us up ‘to the unspoken part of the universe’ around us.

June 12, 2026

John Dyer, the hero of Nicholas Shakespeare (2026) Frame 37, London, Harvill, uses the phrase, ‘… nothing ever disappears completely, and when it returns it does so in exaggerated form’.  It is so very nearly an echo of the many ways in which Sigmund Freud described ‘the return of the repressed’.[1] However, it would be … More Memes are sometimes nothing more than rhythms in the memory. John Dyer, the hero of Nicholas Shakespeare (2026) ‘Frame 37’, uses the phrase, ‘… nothing ever disappears completely, and when it returns it does so in exaggerated form’.  This blog considers whether it is the purpose of ‘good stories’ to locate the source of truth of an incomprehensible universe, but to continually suggest that this truth runs like ‘a non-verbal poetry’ with a ‘rhythm that feels fresh’ and might wake us up ‘to the unspoken part of the universe’ around us.

How to ‘finish’ a book. Is it the same thing as ‘reading’ a book.

May 31, 2026

How to ‘finish’ a book. Is it the same thing as ‘reading’ a book. When I was a child, I was obsessed with having to finish a book. It was a measure of the endurance, fortitude or passion (with varying degrees of drive and amounts of compulsion enforced from some internalised diktat or standard) to … More How to ‘finish’ a book. Is it the same thing as ‘reading’ a book.

‘What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?’ This question is stuck in the mud of illusion, for as Thomas Hardy said, in a work no-one ever reads, “if a way to the Better there be, it Begins with a Full Look at the Worst’.

May 26, 2026

‘What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?’ This question is stuck in the mud of illusion, for as Thomas Hardy said, in a work no-one ever reads, “if a way to the Better there be, it Begins with a Full Look at the Worst’. There … More ‘What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?’ This question is stuck in the mud of illusion, for as Thomas Hardy said, in a work no-one ever reads, “if a way to the Better there be, it Begins with a Full Look at the Worst’.

‘Man measured his words like food and decided what was worth opening his mouth for’. Words and food in Derek Owusu (2026) ‘Hunger Pains’ for The Reading Agency Quick Reads.

April 18, 2026

‘Man measured his words like food and decided what was worth opening his mouth for’.[1] No-one measures his words like Derek Owusu, and no writer has pursued the link between food and the ‘matter’ that is, as in Hamlet (Act 2, Scene 2, 204ff.), ‘Words, words, words’, (whether spoken or written) like him since Shakespeare. … More ‘Man measured his words like food and decided what was worth opening his mouth for’. Words and food in Derek Owusu (2026) ‘Hunger Pains’ for The Reading Agency Quick Reads.