Forgotten Churches by Luke Sherlock
a journey around English ecclesiastical architecture with a nerd I (eventually) warmed to
Category: Book Review
june movie round up
what I was watching in May 2025
Notes To John by Joan Didion
a rallying hypocritical cry or is Notes To John an unethical publication in this form only???
Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson
too many notes on a lyrical novel that is frequently beautiful but isn’t quite perfect
Playing for Time by Arthur Miller
some life updates, some political commentary and a reflection on an unsubtle Arthur Miller play…
notes for an interview with FRANK ABRAMS, author of THE COCKFIGHT
find out more about THE COCKFIGHT by FRANK ABRAMS through my pre-interview notes
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse #1)
Leviathan Wakes is wall-to-wall fast paced excitement, and absolutely nothing else…
may movie round up
what I was watching in May 2025
video – scott manley hadley ten minute alternative comedy set
a longer set than I’ve previously posted…
video – scott manley hadley aka SOLID BALD tries musical comedy
an attempt at musical comedy from scott manley hadley aka SOLID BALD
After Dead by Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood #15 (of 13))
probably the greatest book of flash fiction ever published
God Help The Child by Toni Morrison
sadness, cruelty, oppression, magical realism, and a writer in their mid-80s putting out possibly the best depiction of the millennial experience to date
FEATURE INTERVIEW: Pierce Day, author of A Phone of the Artist as a Young Man
author Pierce Day responds to a series of questions about his novel A PHONE OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
a fine novel that didn’t blow my mind like samuel delany usually do
A Phone of the Artist as a Young Man by Pierce Day – PART FOUR OF FOUR
am i bitter? am i jealous? am i over the hill??? – a four part review concludes
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
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
The Book of Outcasts by Matt Nagin
fun, unpretentious, short fiction collection about men behaving badly
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
Reverse Cowgirl by McKenzie Wark
a spectacular sex memoir (the memoir is spectacular (and maybe the sex was too))
A Man & Two Women by Doris Lessing
i read a brilliant, flawless, collection of stories
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch & Sheila McGraw
i read a devastatingly beautiful book for children
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
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
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
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
Triumph Of The Now 