Chinese calligraphers write poems in water on stone slabs which evaporate before completion. A Cambodian fisherman, his extensive family long ago butchered by the Khmer Rouge, lights the candles on a bamboo model of his boat and bows in gratefulness that the Mekong river has accepted his sacrifice. In a village on the west ofRead More
It is time, once more, for me to rearrange my books. A visit to a couple of second-hand bookshops resulted in a bagful of titles to add to the collection, and such is the tight squeeze on some of the shelves that I need a rethink. Space must be created at more than one pointRead More
As 2022 winds its way to its ignominious close, it’s time to look back at some of the things that were good about the year, despite war, weather, viruses, the meteoric rise in the cost of living, and a revolving door of prime ministers. We’ll start off with books, which were the greatest solace. InRead More
Bob Dylan keeps on going. Though there have been hints that he may announce a retirement, at least from touring, at the end of his 2021-2024 Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour, when he will be eighty-three, there is no certainty beyond life’s inevitability. So it is that, after the artistic triumph of hisRead More
Nine years ago I started up a website that gathered examples of eyewitness testimony from people going to see motion pictures. I called it Picturegoing, which felt catchy, and the dot com address was available. Today, I am happy to announce, the book version has been published. The book is entitled Picturegoers – because aRead More
Such has been the flurry of business surrounding the British Library’s exhibition on the history of British news, Breaking the News, that I have neglected to mention here what should be its most lasting legacy: the book. So, at the end of April 2022, the British Library published Breaking the News: 500 Years of NewsRead More
In a world of websites, databases, digital archives offering every kind of information, and every manner of finding such information, why do I cherish some printed reference works? In part it is familiarity – there are works that have sat on my shelves for many years, old friends, reassuring to see, pleasing to handle. InRead More
I have been reading We Are Bellingcat, by Eliot Higgins. Subtitled ‘an intelligence agency for the people’, it is an account of the rise of of a group of dedicated open-source investigators, whose means of analysing openly available material on the Internet to investigate such stories on the downing of Malaysia Flight 17 to theRead More
I read quite a few books in 2020, and finished most of them. As with last year, rather than try and survey them all (which would be too much) or even just the ones I thought were good (which would still be too much), I have selected twelve, one for each of the months inRead 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