I read a lot of books in 2019. I bought more than I read, but those are almost separate pleasures, two different kinds of discovery. One is a quest, the other an exploration. I guess that the linked goal is a search for an ideal: the pristine copy, or one that has aged gently, tastefullyRead More
Next in these reviews of the year is the year in books. I read a lot in 2018, and it was a vintage year: for books published in 2018, for those I finally caught up on, and (best of all) all those unexpected surprises from times past. I’ve put the highlights into nine categories, withRead More
Once upon a time wars, like stories, had a beginning, a middle and an end. Two sides lined up over an issue, or set of issues – land, honour, race, faith – and fought. In fighting they abided by a common set of rules, or seemed to. One side won, and gained the objective. TheRead More
I read many books in 2017; I drank many cups of coffee. There’s an argument for my reviewing the various coffee drinks I’ve had over the year, intertwined with the locations in which I enjoyed them (ah, the latte I had at that ice cream parlour in Helsinki back in May…), but on balance IRead More
I read a good many books in 2016; I drank a good many cups of coffee while I was doing so. Sometimes other beverages, but mostly coffee. If you just want to see the books rather than read about them, you can go to my Flickr page, The book I’m reading the drink I’m drinking,Read More
Next up in this series of reviews of 2015 and those of its cultural treasures that fell my way is reading. I’m always astonished by those sections in ‘quality’ newspapers in which the great, the good, and journalists tell you the best of what they have read during the year. They all seem to haveRead More
Some thirty years ago, when I had little money but a great urge to discover all the writers not then known to me, I would scour the second-hand bookshops and would hope to pay 20p for some battered paperback, 40p if it looked to be of special interest. One day, while browsing through the fewRead More
I am not a bibliophile. I do not collect or revere books for their own sake. I am not a book collector. The fact that I own quite a number of books stretched out across a fair number of shelves is because at each an every time of acquiring those books I needed to readRead More
The Times Literary Supplement used to have a weekly competition which invited its readers to identify three literary quotations on a connected theme. It was difficult, so it was a small triumph if I knew one of the quotations, an annual occurrence to spot two. One day, some years ago, I recognised one of theRead More
I’ve had enough of these long, infrequent posts. I spend ages deliberating over what to write, then still longer putting off writing itself because it takes up so much time – and once I’ve started I can’t stop. Shorter, pithier, more frequent – that’s what’s required. In the interim, here’s a photo from today, takenRead More