Compass by Mathias Enard
A beautiful novel for an ugly world.
Tag: literature
#TotNTV: Gary Budden, Writer & Publisher
Budden on Budden
#TotNTV: Setting Up A Literary Magazine
Sean Preston chats Open Pen.
Paraside Lost by John Milton
Imagine if the songs in Rocky Horror were shit
#TotNTV: Sophie Hopesmith
Sophie Hopesmith reads from her novel Another Justified Sinner, published 2017 by Dead Ink Books.
#TotNTV: Writing From Life
What does it mean to turn life into art?
#TotNTV: Translating the Balkans
Three writers and a publisher discuss work in translation
#TotNTV: Birmingham & the West Midlands
Shakespeare ‘n’ Sabbath
#TotNTV: Sheffield
A new episode, a new place: Sheffield
#TotNTV: London
live by the river
#TotNTV: Place
Nikolaidis, Li, Frears on Place
Triumph of the Now TV
home of the lo-fi magazine web series
Music & Literature No. 7
I get angry and confused because I’m repressed and have elitist interests
White Girls by Hilton Als
Off the booze (again), I enjoy a book but despair of life.
On a Chinese Screen by W. Somerset Maugham
Very Colonial travel writing from author of The Painted Veil
Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
Fantastic Mr Fox is an ode to adventure capitalism. My life is an ode to wine.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Can I write about writing about race without discussing race? No.
R u a gay or a racist???
A bald head looks like the tip of an erect penis without the external urethral meatus.
One of Us by Åsne Seierstad
A beautiful book about a horrible thing.
Consider the Lobster And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace
David bloody Foster bloody Wallace…
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
In America alone, 281 pounds of pig shit is produced for every one person per year. I don’t know if that’s a lot as I don’t know what a pound is.
The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories by Bruno Schulz
Have you ever had a dream? Have you ever dreamt a day, a week, a month, a year? Have youContinue Reading
Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume
I don’t know where this book came from. I know I bought it, I’m pretty certain I went out ofContinue Reading
The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner
A lot of people don’t read poetry. A lot of people who read a lot of books, don’t read poetry. AContinue Reading
On the Value of Literature by Karl Ove Knausgaard
What is the point of literature? What is the point of life? Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of the hugely acclaimed MyContinue Reading
From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming
This is my first blog post in a while, and even then it’s still happening a little earlier than expected.Continue Reading
Recovery by John Berryman
Long before James Frey was breaking Oprah Winfrey’s fragile heart by fictionalising his time in addiction therapy and the behaviourContinue Reading
on the beach from fat man on a beach
Visiting the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales.
Martin John by Anakana Schofield
I’ve accidentally grown a goatee and as a result of this I now look like a sex pervert*. This wasContinue Reading
The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
When I read the first volume of Elena Ferrante’s lauded Neapolitan Novels series, many of the conversations being had about itContinue Reading
The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing
I’m an abyss filling up with regret and alcohol at equal measure, like a really wet martini.
Some Rain Must Fall: My Struggle Book Five by Karl Ove Knausgaard
It’s taken me a few more days than I’d hoped, but I’ve just finished reading the fifth book of KarlContinue Reading
Shaking Hands with Death by Terry Pratchett
When I was young it was normal practice for supermarkets to fill the spaces around the tills – where peopleContinue Reading
What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy
The intellectual and emotional vigour with which I’ve approached What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy has left me bawling in the street,Continue Reading
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Over the last month, Don Quixote has travelled a huge amount with me. He was with me for the tailContinue Reading
Othello by William Shakespeare
About two months ago I spent a week in Finland, driving through the countryside from flea market to charity shopContinue Reading
Flaubert in Egypt by Gustave Flaubert (kind of)*
Flaubert in Egypt is ostensibly (though it isn’t) a book written by Gustave Flaubert about his hedonistic travels through EgyptContinue Reading
Victoria by Knut Hamsun
I know I should be spending my free time writing something that isn’t this blog. I know I should haveContinue Reading
A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing was a surprise critical smash in the heady days of 2013/14, atContinue Reading
The Death of Ivan Ilyich & Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy
This week, I decided to dabble with a bit of Leo Tolstoy. I’ve never read anything by the big-hitting RussianContinue Reading
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
Child of God was Cormac McCarthy’s third novel, and is the first book of his I’ve read for a while.Continue Reading
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams by Sylvia Plath
I intended to read Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams for a while, but held off doing so forContinue Reading
Penguin Modern Stories 7
I sourced this 1971 collection of short stories for one simple reason: ‘For Bolocks Please Read Blocks Throughout’, a B.Continue Reading
Chess by Stefan Zweig
Chess is an excellent little novella written by Stefan Zweig in the early 1940s. An Austrian who’d run from theContinue Reading
Working the Room by Geoff Dyer
As often happens with essay collections (particularly ones read for the writer’s personality rather than his or her topics), WorkingContinue Reading
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille
Phwoar! Actually, I retract that. Other than the bit where a priest is raped by a woman and two menContinue Reading
Commonplace Book by E. M. Forster
Over the last week I have read a strange text: Commonplace Book by E. M. Forster. Bits of it thrilledContinue Reading
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
I haven’t read a huge amount of Vladimir Nabokov’s novels, only the very obvious one and probably the second mostContinue Reading
Memoir: A History by Ben Yagoda
This will probably be my last blog for a while, as I have a couple of essays to write over theContinue Reading
Triumph Of The Now 