Category Archives: Uncategorized

HG Wells, The Door in the Wall, and MR James, Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book

These days, I tend to organise books alphabetically and by genre, which probably makes me sound more anal than I really am (most other things I just throw on the floor). But when I was a youngish teenager, I loved … Continue reading

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Next time, it’s thumbscrews…

Writer, blogger, jogger, cook and author of soon-to-be-published Minding My Peas and Cucumbers, Kay Sexton has done me the great honour of reviewing Any Human Face (still available at all good booksellers, although you may have to insist) and of asking … Continue reading

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Niall Griffiths, The Dreams of Max and Ronnie, and Gwyneth Lewis, The Meat Tree

Some years ago, Canongate began to publish a series of re-workings of the world’s great myths. It was a good idea, and it’s produced some interesting and surprising works, among them Dream Angus by Alexander McCall Smith, a startlingly resonant … Continue reading

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Clare Dudman: 98 Reasons for Being

Last September, I was invited to take part in a book-lovers’ week in Catalonia, as one of four guest authors. (And if you think you’d enjoy a week in a manor house in a beautiful part of northern Spain, eating … Continue reading

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Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go

It seems a bit churlish to follow my last, fairly negative review with another one – although Ishiguro‘s work generally and this novel in particular have been sufficiently praised by enough people for one small dissenting voice not to matter that much … Continue reading

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Keith Ridgway, Horses

No, not the Patti Smith début album, much as I love it, but a long story by the Irish writer Keith Ridgway, unknown to me until a few weeks ago, when I read a typically perceptive review by John Self of a … Continue reading

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My new tee-shirt

C/o Threadless

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What people read

We’re coming to that time of the year when people are asked about what they’ve read during the previous twelve months. Well, I say people. Nobody’s asked me so far. Normally this wouldn’t bother me at all because the thing … Continue reading

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Goodbye Hello

This is my first official post on my new blog and, would you believe it, I’ve gone all shy. Give me an hour or two and I’ll try to compose myself. In the meantime, if there’s anything you’d like to … Continue reading

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Yin yang? Hmm

Is it just me or are the two people with Barbara Cartland in this photograph Peter Mandelson and Paul McCartney in drag?

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