Firstly, excuse the lack of a ‘Happy New Year’ greeting. It’s just been announced that the UK is back in total lockdown again, so 2021 isn’t off to a very …
Christmas Book Haul and Tackling My TBR Pile
DNFing a book – and it wasn’t even that bad
I’m going to abandon my current read. Blue Remembered Earth, by Alastair Reynolds, will be added to the rather short list of books I started and then gave up on. …
The future always arrives when you’re not looking
Some farmers in Cornwall were still using threshing machines, a precursor of the combine harvester, when my dad was young. That makes it sound like he was born in the …
The Devil and the Dark Water: Stuart Turton delivers one hell of a follow up
Stuart Turton was facing a mammoth task when he sat down to write his second book. It was a labour of his own making: his debut, the Seven Deaths of …
Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is beautiful, spellbinding, mesmerising. But…
ENTRY FOR THE TWELFTH DAY OF THE TENTH MONTH IN THE YEAR IN WHICH I READ PIRANESI Piranesi is a masterclass in many things – building a world so beautiful …
I’ve become a social media monk
I’ve become more moderate as I’ve gotten older. I don’t necessarily mean politically, although that is part of it, but just in general. I’ve become less outspoken, and actually I …
Discovering the third-life crisis, and remembering what I used to love
Once upon a time, a young boy (who then grew into an old boy and then, paradoxically, a young man) used to fill his time with hobbies. He’d lay on …