Zona by Geoff Dyer
I’m on a flight, heading eastwards for 36 hours in Bucharest[1]. Flying out of Luton at 10pm on a MondayContinue Reading
I’m on a flight, heading eastwards for 36 hours in Bucharest[1]. Flying out of Luton at 10pm on a MondayContinue Reading
It is 1230am on a Friday night, I am (which is very rare for me) not at work, my girlfriendContinue Reading
Over the last month, Don Quixote has travelled a huge amount with me. He was with me for the tailContinue Reading
Many months ago, back when I had a regular social life, a friend of mine who works in publishing gaveContinue Reading
About two months ago I spent a week in Finland, driving through the countryside from flea market to charity shopContinue Reading
This is the 300th book review I have posted on this blog*, and it seems appropriate that its focus is aContinue Reading
fuck So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckContinue Reading
I read another one of those cute Penguin Little Black Classics, this one a collection of three short stories byContinue Reading
Flaubert in Egypt is ostensibly (though it isn’t) a book written by Gustave Flaubert about his hedonistic travels through EgyptContinue Reading
During the Summer I crossed a line in the sand I scratched out a long time ago and, accepting mortality andContinue Reading
I’ve been reading a massive book* since I got back from my holiday last month, and have only just reached its end.Continue Reading
Slowly, the land recedes. I am writing this on a ferry, pushing its way across the surprisingly flat Bay (orContinue Reading
It’s been a while since I’ve read any poetry. Life, I find, often gets in the way. Life, which isn’tContinue Reading
I’m writing this on my phone, stood in the queue at the Apple Store where I’ve gone to replace myContinue Reading
Marie Sarita Gaytán is an American academic (an Assistant Professor of Sociology) and ¡Tequila!: Distilling the Spirit of Mexico is anContinue Reading
midlands novel and a road trip into childhood
A couple of weeks ago, I got a strange email from a small publishing house, Zoilus Press. They said thatContinue Reading
The Vegetarian by Han Kang is an odd book. I bought it for myself on my mad, wild, Foyles birthdayContinue Reading
Iran. Who knows much about it? We’ve all seen Argo, we’ve all heard of nuclear weapons, we’re all aware thatContinue Reading
I read every other novel by Jonathan Franzen during a period of about 18 months after really, really enjoying FreedomContinue Reading
Psalms and Songs is an odd book, a collection of short stories by Malcolm Lowry (some previously published, others unfinished),Continue Reading
Whales. What are they? Who are they? And why did humans stop killing them just before their extinction was finallyContinue Reading
Malcolm Lowry, secret hero of these blog posts, fell into a deep depression after the publication of Charles Jackson’s TheContinue Reading
Rosamond Lehmann is not a widely-read novelist any more, though in the middle of the 20th-century, she was both popularContinue Reading
The first Cormac McCarthy novel I read was 2006’s The Road, and it is by far and away his best.Continue Reading
Big books. I have an odd relationship with ’em. The idea of big books, to be honest, I have aContinue Reading
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a big, serious novel all about big, serious things. It is intelligent, articulate, humaneContinue Reading
Jeff Lemire’s Lost Dogs is a graphic novel first published in 2006. It is a dark, terrifying and immersive pieceContinue Reading
Iris Murdoch is one of the handful of writers who I return to with regular irregularity. Like Graham Greene, VirginiaContinue Reading
As I continue to read through the (surprisingly) ever-expanding oeuvre of the alcoholic, depressive, late-Modernist writer, Malcolm Lowry, I amContinue Reading
So, am back in London and have a little over an hour in which to wash, shave, iron clothes, cleanContinue Reading
I don’t really understand what is the fucking point of this dull novel. Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is aContinue Reading
Last night, as I wandered between bars and cafes in Taksim, North of the Golden Horn, I read most ofContinue Reading
I haven’t read a play for a while. I used to read plays all the time, it was one ofContinue Reading
I picked this up a while ago from a secondhand bookshop somewhere, shortly after reading Jonathan Coe’s Like A FieryContinue Reading
Well, it is good. It’s good. It’s possibly great, but it’s definitely good. Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend is basicallyContinue Reading
I’m going on a trip to Russia in about six weeks, so have begun my travel research. Unlike normal people,Continue Reading
I know I should be spending my free time writing something that isn’t this blog. I know I should haveContinue Reading
I decided to read another one of the tiny little Penguin Classics. This one, How To Use Your Enemies byContinue Reading
Sometimes I read novels where I can’t really see why they were written. Novels that say very little to meContinue Reading
Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing was a surprise critical smash in the heady days of 2013/14, atContinue Reading
I haven’t read a novel by the “other” Murakami for years. In my long and distant and pre-blogging past, IContinue Reading
I don’t know if anyone else likes little books as much as I do, but I’ve been particularly charmed recentlyContinue Reading
I like Biblical novels. So much so that I wrote one*, and so much so that after reading about ten/twenty,Continue Reading
A very easy way of gauging how much I’ve enjoyed a book is how long it takes me to readContinue Reading
Getting Colder by Amanda Coe is a great, contemporary novel. It is fun, quite haunting in places and it isContinue Reading
For the past four years, the big literary release (for me) has been the continuing publication of Karl Ove Knausgaard’sContinue Reading
Jean-Paul Sartre is another one of those hip, nihilistic-type novelists than whiney, depressive young men read in-between bouts of binge-drinkingContinue Reading
The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth was a surprising literary hit of 2014. Not a “literary hit” in that it soldContinue Reading
I thoroughly enjoyed The Paying Guests, which was a relief as the last book I read was DIRE. I’d neverContinue Reading