I owe my life to a second-hand bookshop
Once upon a time a young woman opened a bookshop…
Booker Prize 2011 – A triumph for the genre novel?
The dust has settled and the shoot-out at the literary salon is over. Julian Barnes has outgunned The Sisters Brothers and the rest of the not-so-magnificent five. The critics and literati have grumbled and sniped, whilst that endangered breed, the booksellers have rubbed their hands with glee at a welcome boost to their sales.
Poems from booktitles
Just entered a Guardian blog challenge to try to make poems from book titles. My effort’s below. Here’s the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/oct/06/compose-a-poem-from-book-titles The Poetry of book titles As I walked out one midsummer morning Neither here nor there Dreams of leaving Linger awhile Landscape and memory, Like water for chocolate, Different Seasons Clinging to the wreckage…
Why I used to love Twitter (a bit, despite the bile)
Well, this hasn’t aged well. I did used to enjoy the old place. Nov 2022 Update. Now there’s a title I wouldn’t use anymore. But for me, most of the following still stands, ego maniac, conspiracy spouting billionaires not withstanding. One obvious caveat, I’m white, male and not at all famous, so attract bile and personal…
A quote from Victor Hugo
Found this indirectly via ‘Little White Lies’ – an excellent film magazine – in the current Apocalypse Now issue. “Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenanciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that…
Record Store Day – Here’s to Revolver Records, Bristol.
As a teenager in the eighties my hometown seemed blessed with a surprising variety of record shops, but I always saw Revolver as the one true emporium of cool.
An ill-fated encounter between a pompous git* and a pram.
Why is it that a certain kind of person in this country finds it so hard to accept that children exist? It’s not as if they are a rarity. If you have or know children, you’ve probably encountered the type. They’re often male, but not exclusively, usually fairly well-off and long past their own youth.…
Richly Evocative 