Rough around the edges
Roughing It – Mark Twain. Penguin Classics. 1982 In the years before he settled down to write about Huck Finn, Mr Clemens vagabonded around for a while, travelling from Missouri … Continue reading
Lincoln in the Bardo
Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders. Random House. Part-Beckett, Part-Brautigan (in places it even reminded me of Mervyn Peake) George Saunders’ first novel is set in the Bardo – … Continue reading
In Praise of Shadows
In Praise of Shadows – Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, tr. Harper and Seidensticker. Vintage. Tanizaki’s classic essay on Japanese aesthetics is beautiful and at times bewildering. From toilets to theatre … Continue reading
A Young Doctor’s Notebook
A Young Doctor’s Notebook – Mikhail Bulgakov; tr. Hugh Alpin. Alma Books. 1917 – The Tsar has abdicated, Lenin has published his April Theses, and there is chaos in Petrograd. … Continue reading
The everyday and the mini ecosphere
Stuck indoors, staring at spoons and ceilings, the massive, psychological fallout from our curtailed liberties remains to be seen. In the meantime, we’re urged to surfeit ourselves on … Continue reading
For Whom the Smell Tolls
Partly in an attempt to enliven the monotony of quarantine, and to find something respectable to do in between day drinking and checking for news of the coming apocalypse, … Continue reading
A Death in the Family: My Struggle 1 – Karl Ove Knausgaard
This isn’t like most other books written today, in terms of its form, diction – pretty much everything. It’s committed to a project of total unembarassable honesty that marks … Continue reading
Known and Strange Things – Teju Cole
‘Known and strange things’ takes its name from Seamus Heaney’s ‘Postscript’, which has as its theme an epiphanic encounter with the ineffable. In the preface to this collection, Cole tells … Continue reading
Gerrard or Crowley?
Looking for a literary parlour game? Looking for a better use of your time? Read on, anyway. Take any two books from your shelf which have a reasonably violent clash … Continue reading
Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from his Life – Katherine Duncan-Jones
In 400 years we seem to have reimagined Shakespeare in every possible light. Augustan sage, Romantic genius, trenchant nihilist, and in Katherine Duncan-Jones’ Ungentle Shakespeare, a nasty piece of work. … Continue reading
Rhapsody of Rags 