A Phone of the Artist as a Young Man by Pierce Day – PART THREE OF FOUR
closer to the text, the faults fall away – a four part review continues
Author: scottmanleyhadley
I like to read but little else. I have bad mental health and a dog. And a baby. And no hair. And a blog.
A Phone of the Artist as a Young Man by Pierce Day – PART TWO OF FOUR
LITERATURE DIDN’T DIE WITH JAMES JOYCE: a four-post special series continues
A Phone of the Artist as a Young Man by Pierce Day – PART ONE OF FOUR
I WOULD HAVE SOLD MY DIRTY SOUL TO WRITE THIS BOOK: a four-post special series begins
TEN WORDS OR FEWER INTERVIEW: Jessica Aike, author of This Thing in My Head
a chat with Jessica Aike, author of This Thing in My Head
10 Year Hair Free “Celebration”: SOLID BALD video playlist link
10 years hair free… and still making a song (not a dance) about it
The Book of Outcasts by Matt Nagin
fun, unpretentious, short fiction collection about men behaving badly
TEN WORDS OR FEWER INTERVIEW: Karl Lorenz Willett, author of A Good Life: The Perception of Perfection
a short chat with Karl Lorenz Willett, author of A Good Life: The Perception of Perfection
april movie round up
what I was watching in April 2025
Provincial Squinting At The Mercury Orgy by Jai Knight
an intriguing prose and poetry collection that is deceptively simple or simply deceptive
TEN WORDS OR FEWER INTERVIEW: George Carter, author of Beyond Boundaries
George Carter, author of Beyond Boundaries, answers some questions
Reverse Cowgirl by McKenzie Wark
a spectacular sex memoir (the memoir is spectacular (and maybe the sex was too))
TEN WORDS OR FEWER INTERVIEW: Jai Knight, author of Provincial Squinting at the Mercury Orgy
a chat with Jai Knight, author of Provincial Squinting at the Mercury Orgy
A Man & Two Women by Doris Lessing
i read a brilliant, flawless, collection of stories
TEN WORDS OR FEWER INTERVIEW: Matt Nagin, author of The Book of Outcasts
Matt Nagin answers some questions in ten words or fewer
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch & Sheila McGraw
i read a devastatingly beautiful book for children
TEN WORDS OR FEWER INTERVIEW: Stephen D Owen, author of Iceni: The Year of Sacrifice
interview with Stephen D Owen, author of Iceni: The Year of Sacrifice
A Dream Wants Waking By Lydia Kwa
i enjoyed this chaotic novel but never worked out if it was in control or not…
LUKA: A Novel by Ian Bancroft
an interesting novel about the horrors of intergenerational sectarian conflict
march movie round up
adventures in cinema in March 2025
TEN WORDS OR FEWER INTERVIEW: J.S. Morton, author of You’re Gone
interview with J.S. Morton, author of You’re Gone
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
some thoughts and questions raised by Wharton’s wintry non-wonderland
Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone by James Baldwin
it’s not Baldwin at his best, but at its best, it’s still brilliant
TEN WORDS OR FEWER INTERVIEW: Frank Abrams, author of The Cockfight
interview with Frank Abrams, author of The Cockfight
James Bond 007: COLD by John Gardner
an awful book anyone should be ashamed to have read
Plainwater by Anne Carson
you can read this map by the light of a thunderstorm: Carson on Camino
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
a dystopia from the nineties reads too much like social realism…
The Middlemen: A Satire by Christine Brooke-Rose
pointed gags from the 1960s about things that haven’t changed
february movie round up
in february i saw some movie
Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham
the trouble with trouble with lichen is that it’s best read half-asleep and mostly i read awake
A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf
there’s a reason Woolf didn’t collate this story collection in her own lifetime…
Gnomon by Nick Harkaway
a giant book that offers a giant good time
The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories by Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse #14)
a heartbreaking misfire from the world of Sookie Stackhouse
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
a serious novel that reminds us, again, of the cost of our silences
video – poetry, stripper trousers, hairloss, napoleon complex: smh live stand-up
it’s scott manley hadley aka SOLID BALD
Whale Oil (Monthly Chapbooks #2) by Tempest Miller
Tempest Miller’s second monthly chapbook – a brave if not brilliant series
Daddy Boy by Emerson Whitney
chasing tornadoes and remembering pasts
Return to Nevèrÿon by Samuel R. Delany (Book 4 of 4)
comments on the conclusion to a four-book series
Studies in Classic American Literature by DH Lawrence
I read a bizarre quasi-blog from DH Lawrence so y’all don’t have to
video – 20th June 2008: scott manley hadley Plays & Sings ‘THE BARON SHITE SESSION’
a tape recording of 19yo smh singing has been found and digitised
The Counsellor by Cormac McCarthy
a bad book that, ethically, i probably shouldn’t have been reading
La Mordida: A Scholarly Edition by Malcolm Lowry, edited and annotated by Patrick A. McCarthy
…a curiosity, a fragment of fragments, a distillation of the mind- and work-wrecking ferocity of addiction…
january movie round up
the movies I watched in January
Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. le Guin
a quick run through Ursula Le Guin’s debut novel
Universe Architecture Series: Le Corbusier by Jean Alazard
a short book on architecture and lost futures
The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde
generations fought for a future that – this week – is being murdered on the world stage
Girls Gone Old by Fiona Helmsley
exceptional essay collection from an under-appreciated american
Native Sons by James Baldwin & Sol Stein
fun if minor James Baldwin book feat. correspondence and two collaborative pieces
video – the pret a manger coffee subscription was the best thing that ever happened to me – anti-comedy stand-up
pret a manger is like Greggs for people with student debt … like Birley Sandwiches for people who iron their own clothes
To Say Nothing of The Dog by Connie Willis
a nice, light, vacuous text that is unforgivably overlong
Triumph Of The Now 