Birthday Literary Suicide Tour
So I walk on towards deaths (plural) in the cooling twilight
Tag: travel
#TotNTV: Travelling the Balkans
Come explore the Balkans with sound and visuals!!!
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Gorgeous, sensuous, unforgettable
#TotNTV: Sheffield
A new episode, a new place: Sheffield
The Fall of Yugoslavia by Misha Glenny
A dense, complex book about a dense, complex conflict
#TotNTV: Travel & Tourism
start of a new series of themed episodes on place
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
Wonderful, massive, beautiful, biased.
The Son by Andrej Nikolaidis
More contemporary Balkan writings and my opinions on criminalisation of narcotics
The Coming by Andrej Nikolaidis
My Balkan adventure continues
Homunculus by Aleksandar Prokopiev
Contemporary fairy tales from Macedonia
In the Company of Ghosts: The Poetics of the Motorway edited by Alan Corkish
driving myself crazy / reading books about the motorway
The Man With The Golden Typewriter: Ian Fleming’s James Bond Letters edited by Fergus Fleming
He always writes while others talk
Nomad by Alan Partridge
National treasure Alan produces a national treasure of a book.
Mornings in Mexico by D. H. Lawrence
DHL happy in Mexico, then beautifully sad elsewhere.
Home and Away by Karl Ove Knausgaard and Fredrik Ekelund
A charming, quirky, book tainted by middle aged white male bullshit.
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.
D. H. Lawrence and Italy
I review a Lawrentian travel writing collection containing Twilight in Italy, Sea and Sardinia and Sketches of Etruscan Places.
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
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
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 Ongoing Moment: A Book About Photographs by Geoff Dyer
Well, as some of you may be aware, I’m off having adventures. Yes, again. After an 18 month stint inContinue Reading
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
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
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Many months ago, back when I had a regular social life, a friend of mine who works in publishing gaveContinue 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
Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson
So, am back in London and have a little over an hour in which to wash, shave, iron clothes, cleanContinue Reading
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Last night, as I wandered between bars and cafes in Taksim, North of the Golden Horn, I read most ofContinue Reading
The Diamond Smugglers by Ian Fleming
I’m writing this on an aeroplane to Istanbul, off for a “mimibreak”*. Treating myself to a trip, all on myContinue Reading
A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck
I’m going on a trip to Russia in about six weeks, so have begun my travel research. Unlike normal people,Continue Reading
The Tongues of Men or Angels by Jonathan Trigell
I like Biblical novels. So much so that I wrote one*, and so much so that after reading about ten/twenty,Continue Reading
The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer
Yes, I read another book by Geoff Dyer and, yes, because it was a structurally complex non-fiction text featuring aContinue Reading
Every Day Is For The Thief by Teju Cole
About a year ago I read and quite enjoyed Teju Cole’s Open City. It was a set text for myContinue Reading
Lonesome Traveler by Jack Kerouac
Last Summer, whilst twatpacking* around the Mediterranean, Tunisair lost my backpack between Casablanca and Tunis. Though it contained nothing ofContinue 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
Swann’s Way (À la recherche du temps perdu 1) by Marcel Proust
I’m writing this in the beautiful Spanish Pyrenees, having spent a day doing little more than reading Proust and lookingContinue Reading
Candide by Voltaire
I’ve somehow gotten into a reading-in-translation rut. I’m going to snap out of, particularly after reading Voltaire’s tiresome and OLD Candide. IContinue Reading
The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald
W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn is one of the strangest books I have read it a while. It isContinue Reading
A Long Weekend in Italy: Naples, Pompeii and Capri
Mount Vesuvius is big. It creaks over Naples from the southeast, with a threat made obvious by the fame ofContinue Reading
Pompeii: A Documentary
Please enjoy a lo-fi video I made during a day trip to Pompeii last weekend. I will write a fullContinue Reading
On Appreciating Graham Greene
I just reread Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair as it’s being discussed in a class I have this week.Continue Reading
Review of 2013
A hip-hop review of the year now ending.
Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It by Geoff Dyer
I have an odd relationship with the works of Geoff Dyer. There are books of his that I rate asContinue Reading
On Coming Out As A Catholic
I’ve decided that from now on I am going to self-identify as a Catholic. A couple of days ago IContinue Reading
On Missing Linguistic Isolation
Something clicked in my head while I was away this Summer. I don’t know if it was something I ate,Continue Reading
I Don’t Practice Santorini, I Ain’t Got No Piss-tal Ball: Urinating on a Woman, the Greek Pompeii and Over-Priced Drinks
‘Please,’ she said, wiggling her arse in apparent desperate need and pulling her red and black one piece to theContinue Reading
It Ain’t Brindisi Livin’ Free, Or: You Know What They Say About Men With Big Carbon Footprints*
I woke up at five thirty on my final morning in Palermo. I’d spent the evening before being highly irritatedContinue Reading
Triumph Of The Now 