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Perfect Blue: An introduction to the poetry of Kona Macphee
Published on 2012-05-24 17:00:00
[T]he older I get, the more I value sincerity and directness. I think it’s tragic that “sincere”, at least in the context of the arts, seems to have become a euphemism for “naïve”, typically trotted out in a pejorative way to suggest “well-meaning but amateurish”. What is sincerity, if not simply meaning what you say? – and thus quite the opposite of sophistry, spin and relentless post-modern “irony” (which seems to be euphemistic for “all a big, knowingly self-referential [..] > read more
The Levels
Published on 2012-05-19 17:00:00
[S]he had been brought up to know things to do with words, and to do with being able to act, as a girl, more like a man than most men do. Open. Strong and direct. She knew what she wanted. – Peter Benson, The Levels Blokes don’t read love stories. They read about spies and soldiers and adventurers and aliens; they read about shiny things that go fast and explode; dangerous things; exciting things. Offer most men a love story and they’d sniff at it. The odd thing is that all of them [..] > read more
Don't waste my time
Published on 2012-05-14 17:00:00
Time equals life; therefore, waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life. – Alan LakeinTime is precious. I say that and it reads like a cliché. Time is valuable but most people aren’t willing to pay us a fraction of what our time is worth. I know what the government says the average wage is—currently that would be about £26,000 per annum—but I’ve never earned anything like that. In fact when I was on £15K I thought that was good money, about £7.70 [..] > read more
Magnus Opum
Published on 2012-05-09 16:30:00
Every writer of modern fantasy was influenced by Tolkien to some degree. He was the premiere fantasy writer of the last century, and all of us writing today owe him a huge debt. – Terry Brooks If you enjoyed JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit there’s a good chance that you’ll enjoy Jonathan Gould’s Magnus Opum. Or not. I guess it all depends on how passionate you were over The Hobbit. Some readers are a bit precious about Tolkien’s work and parodies like The Wobbit and Bored of the Rin [..] > read more
Drowning in chocolate: an apology ... eventually
Published on 2012-05-04 17:00:00
What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare? W H Davies (‘Leisure’) I am not someone one would generally think to call an optimist. Introverted, melancholic individuals are not generally prone to expressing an overly positive view of life even if, on the whole, they hold one. Even the most introverted and melancholic individual will, however, most likely, fall in love at some time during their life and at that that time—if only at that time—th [..] > read more
Verruca Music
Published on 2012-04-29 17:00:00
of course i could have used the traditional ovine sleep induction method but frankly the sheer effort required to imagine two thousand five hundred and eighty four sheep shambling over a rickety old gate was beyond the poor old bonce and enough to make the heart sink and god knows the heart did sink — Stuart Estell, Verruca Music There are a lot of new books appearing at the moment. A lot. I don’t think people are writing more. People have always written and will continue to writ [..] > read more
Aggie and Shuggie 33
Published on 2012-04-24 17:00:00
Maggie: [Knock Knock Knock] Ma! Da! Get up. Aggie: [Throwing the bedroom door open] Whit is it, hen? Is it yer gran? Huff we bin burgled? Hus the doag swallayed the remote agin? Maggie: Naw. Nuhin like tha. This! [Holds up her laptop] Huff ye seen this? Aggie: Whit hen? Maggi [..] > read more
Brilliance
Published on 2012-04-19 17:00:00
[W]hat is an old man but a memory machine? – Anthony McCarten, Brilliance Historical fiction is a problematic genre. On one level it’s great for the author because he or she has the plot already laid out for them and all they have to do is fill in the blanks (which is a gross oversimplification, I know); the reader on the other hand has the worry that as he or she knows in advance what’s going to happen they will find little to surprise them in the text. An excellent example of getti [..] > read more
The responsibilities and duties of being a reader in the 21st century
Published on 2012-04-14 16:45:00
[U]sers are selfish, lazy, and ruthless – Jakob Neilsen, definition of the online reader in ‘Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster’ This is one of those areas where it’s going to take time to re-educate people. It’s like plastic bags. They’ve been telling us for years to stop using these and although I have a reusable and reasonably manly shopping bag, the number of times I walk into a shop without it is ridiculous. Okay, fair’s fair, we re [..] > read more
Imagine: How Creativity Works
Published on 2012-04-09 17:00:00
We know that screw-ups are an essential part of what we do here. That’s why our goal is simple: We just want to screw up as quickly as possible. We want to fail fast. And then we want to fix it. – Lee Unkrich There are a lot of things in this life that I don't get. Like breathing. I know we have to do it. I know we don't have to think about doing it and our bodies will just get on with it but I really don't get it. And that goes for a lot of things in my life. I get ideas and I write about [..] > read more
Music to write to (part one)
Published on 2012-04-04 17:00:00
Music is the pleasure of the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting. - Gottfried Leibniz I have been intending to write this article for a long while but a couple of things happened recently that started me thinking I should stop letting other things get in the way and just get on with it. But first, to set the scene, a handful of quotes plucked from the Internet: I pretty much just listen to film scores, but I'll also throw in some Stravinsky, Shost [..] > read more
So the Wind Won’t Blow it all Away
Published on 2012-03-30 17:00:00
This is Life
Published on 2012-03-25 17:00:00
Google Analytics says 85% of my readers will only stay here long enough to read about forty words so, for their benefit, let me cut to the chase: this is a great book—you should buy it. If only for the cover. Now for the rest of you let me explain myself. This is the fourth book by Dan Rhodes that I’ve reviewed on this site. The other three are, in order: Gold, Timoleon Vieta Come Home and Little Hands Clapping. I have also read but not reviewed Anthropology and Don't Tell Me the Truth Abou [..] > read more
The tinnitus of existence (part two)
Published on 2012-03-20 18:00:00
The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning "ability to," and bics, meaning "withstand tremendous boredom – Dave Barry The boredom epidemic Boredom, as we learned in part one, came into existence in the mid-nineteenth century but… Orrin Klapp documents an enormous increase in the use of the word boredom between 1931 and 1961, calls attention to "the large vocabulary of English words connoting boredom," and hypothesises that this lexicon "not only registers the preval [..] > read more
The tinnitus of existence (part one)
Published on 2012-03-15 18:00:00
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity – Dorothy Parker Life is full of ups and downs. Upness is a concept. It’s one we get fairly early on in life and usually about the same time we grasp the notion of downness (and also neither-up-nor-downness) and we get jokes like, “What goes up a chimney down but not down a chimney up?” It’s hard to imagine someone grasping the idea of ‘up’ and yet struggling to understand ‘down’. And the same goes for lots of ot [..] > read more
Gonzo Republic: Hunter S Thompson's America
Published on 2012-03-10 17:00:00
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro – Hunter S. Thompson, ‘Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl’ (Rolling Stone #155) In his critical examination of Hunter S. Thompson’s literary output writer William Stephenson does something that I’m not entirely convinced that Thompson did himself: he takes Hunter S. Thompson seriously. That doesn’t mean he ignores the man’s flaws and weaknesses because they’re impossible to sidestep, but then neither does he dwell solely on the [..] > read more
Ambition
Published on 2012-03-05 17:00:00
Ambition is the last refuge of failure – Oscar Wilde “You need to start being honest about your ambition.” I read that advice a while ago in blog called Tribal Writer. The speaker was Justine Musk, a writer, and she was the person giving the advice to Sabine, a young dance instructor. The post was entitled How to Embrace Your Naked Ambition and Make Your Subconscious Your Bitch. And it made me think. While I was thinking I started writing. This is what I wrote. I think I’ve always [..] > read more
Ugly to Start With
Published on 2012-02-29 17:00:00
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, was my early world. Today it’s still the wallpaper in my brain – John Michael Cummings The historic town of Harpers Ferry is located in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains (the ones Laurel and Hardy sang about) in Jefferson County, West Virginia, situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers where the states of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia meet. So, most definitely, a nexus. Historically, it is best known for John Brown's ra [..] > read more
Is anyone writing just fiction anymore?
Published on 2012-02-24 16:00:00
The general "fiction" section of the bookstore … can be a very lonely place – Donald Maass A while back I joined a writers’ group on Facebook. It’s a friendly place, bustling with activity. Some authors are slogging away on that first book, others are there promoting a whole range. So, a whole mixed bag. Almost all of us have websites and blogs and although our primary reason for being there is to promote ourselves, as is the nature of the Internet, there is a general willingness [..] > read more
It Chooses You
Published on 2012-02-19 16:45:00
You’ve broken it wide open, Pollock – Marcia Gay Harden to Ed Harris in Pollock If there is one thing we authors have in common, it’s people. We may write about anthropomorphic animals or aliens or the undead but strip away all the gloss and we’re writing about people: the people next door, the people down the street, the people we met last week in a bring-and-buy sale, the people who taught us English, the people who gave us life in the first place. Such a diverse bunch and yet [..] > read more
Apricot Jam and Other Stories
Published on 2012-02-14 16:30:00
[I]t’s pure physics: Human nature has not enough time to follow everything going on around it. An artist has to be placed at some distance from his object. If he just sets down his momentary expressions it will be more like an essay, a piece of reporting, than a work of art. Few authors are able to capture pieces of reality instantly. … The majority must have time for their impressions to settle down. And also at a certain age one begins to write not about the historical past, but about one [..] > read more
A Country Road. A Tree. Evening.
Published on 2012-02-09 16:45:00
A place for everything, everything in its place – Benjamin Franklin Writers are frequently asked to talk about what inspires them. It’s a difficult question for me to answer because I don’t believe in inspiration, not in any Romantic sense of the word and I never talk about my muse. I believe in ideas. My definition of inspiration is a good idea. And I can get a good idea anywhere. I had a religious upbringing. It didn’t do me any harm but I can’t say my world view has not bee [..] > read more
Can You Eat, Shoot & Leave?
Published on 2012-02-04 16:00:00
The problem with punctuation is threefold. Its rules are seemingly arbitrary; it's boring; and no one knows how to do it. – Richard Lederer and John Shore, Comma Sense: A FUNdamental Guide to Punctuation I like music scores. I think they’re beautiful, often more so than the music, once you get to hear it. They’re so precise. They tell you the pitch, the tempo, the dynamics, the tone, the volume and all of this information is communicated merely by the insertion of a series of squiggl [..] > read more
The Storyteller of Marrakesh
Published on 2012-01-30 16:00:00
[T]he more you interrogate memory, which is nothing other than the search for certainty in time, the more you increase your dependence on chance. – Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya, The Storyteller of Marrakesh Even occasional readers of my blog will have come to realise that the concept of truth is one I struggle with. I like the idea of truth. I think truth’s a great idea. I also think that the technical difficulties in communicating a single truth to another human being are great. As Mustafa, [..] > read more
Aggie and Shuggie 32
Published on 2012-01-25 17:00:00
Maggie: Da! Shuggie: Whit, hen? Maggie: Are we real? Shuggie: Are we whit? Maggie: Real? Shuggie: [feels himself over] Aye, hen, as far as Ah cun tell. Maggie: [..] > read more
Chronicle in Stone
Published on 2012-01-20 16:00:00
I could not understand how people could not like something as beautiful as the aerodrome. But I had lately become convinced that in general people were pretty boring. ― Ismail Kadare, Chronicle in Stone Childhood is a wonderful place, part battleground, part playground. It is like a parallel universe that occupies the same time and space as the adult world and yet exists independently to it. Childhood is a popular subject for writers particularly their own childhoods. Of course it help [..] > read more
Milligan and Murphy
Published on 2012-01-15 16:00:00
Over the past few years regular readers will have heard me mention and sometimes even quote from my unpublished novels. I finished Milligan and Murphy in August 2005 about three years after my play Vladimir and Estragon are Dead. I had kind of thought that after writing that I’d put my fascination with all things Beckettian to bed, but apparently not. The book was written in the two years we were living in an unfurnished flat in the Gorbals. You can actually see the flats in the photo below. T [..] > read more
Beckett's pseudo-couples (part two)
Published on 2012-01-10 17:00:00
In his book, Beckett Before Godot, John Pilling notes: PJ Murphy has been one of the very few Beckett critics to see that Mercier et Camier suffers from what the Denis Devlin review calls 'the need that in its haste to be abolished cannot pause to be stated'. For a book so full of statement, indeed, Mercier et Camier seems oddly insubstantial, as if the 'haste to be abolished' had been more important than 'the predicament of particular human identity.'[1] The English version certainly h [..] > read more
Beckett's pseudo-couples (part one)
Published on 2012-01-05 16:00:00
Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together... TS Eliot, The Waste Land I have no idea what the IQs of these gentlemen are but I don’t think the same criterion applies when you’re talking about writers, composers, comedians and artists. Few would dispute that Beethoven was a musical genius, that Picasso was an artistic genius, that Shakespeare was a literary genius and that Peter Sellers was a comedic genius but does that [..] > read more
An introduction to the ever-so-slightly-odd worlds of Jonathan Gould
Published on 2011-12-21 16:30:00
Daggy – adjective (Australian slang) The opposite of trendy. Uncool, in an unfashionable sense. Think so last season, or old fashioned. Applies to people and things, not just fashion. Not particularly insulting; can even have friendly undertones. That flannelette shirt is so daggy; why don't you update your wardrobe ? Stop hanging out with your daggy friends, get with the hip, new crowd. Just what the world needs, another genre. Finding that his books were uncomfortable [..] > read more
Vintage Sea: an introduction to the poetry of Marion McCready (part two)
Published on 2011-07-04 16:50:00
In the previous article I talked a bit about Marion McCready’s new poetry collection, Vintage Sea, and hearing her read from it at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow on June 17th. Now I’d like to ask Marion a few questions abou > read more
Vintage Sea: an introduction to the poetry of Marion McCready (part one)
Published on 2011-06-29 16:50:00
My work is a matter of fundamental sounds (no joke intended) made as fully as possible, and I accept responsibility for nothing else. If people want to have headaches among the overtones, let them. And provide their own aspirin.[1] – Samuel Beckett > read more
Bed
Published on 2011-06-24 17:00:00
I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day – Linda Evangelista, misquoted[1] Why? It’s not a big question. It is, however, the key question of David Whitehouse’s novel, Bed. Sometimes doing nothing is the only thing to do > read more
I have nothing to say
Published on 2011-06-19 17:00:00
“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche...is to let it rest…” May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude 30th April I have nothing to say. If that were true – and as much as I feel it to be true I doubt if it is – how do I feel ab > read more
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
Published on 2011-06-14 17:00:00
If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we'd be so simple that we couldn't. — Ian Stewart, The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World I didn’t write this review and so if it’s a crap review don > read more
Concentration
Published on 2011-06-09 16:50:00
I just try to concentrate on concentrating – Martina Navratilova I’m having trouble concentrating. Every day I have a load of stuff I feel I ought to read before I start work (e.g. e-mails, RSS feeds, blogs) and sometimes I f > read more
The Hundred Foot Journey
Published on 2011-06-04 17:00:00
A "platto di Mussolini" is a plate of mussels, not the dictator on a dish – Richard Morais, The Hundred Foot Journey As I worked my way though Richard Morais’s first novel, intriguingly-called The Hundred Foot Journey, two other b > read more
A member of the set of imaginary writers
Published on 2011-05-30 16:50:00
Identity is such a crucial affair that one shouldn't rush into it. – David Quammen Here’s another one of those words that we use all the blinkin’ time and think we understand: identity. The first thing I think of when I hear the word ‘id > read more
The Book of Lies
Published on 2011-05-25 17:00:00
Shouldn’t History explain everything? – Mary Horlock, The Book of Lies Up until the age of about twelve or thirteen I had no real idea about voice. Writers told stories, mostly in the third person I suppose, and the reader tagged along. I > read more
The factional me
Published on 2011-05-20 17:00:00
[B]iography risks exaggerating a subject’s importance. Is it enough to document a public figure because they were there? Readability, reason and relevance — the three R’s of writing — are challenges that should not be overlooked. – What are > read more
Missing
Published on 2011-05-15 16:50:00
When I reviewed Karin Alvtegen's novel, Shadow a couple of years ago I fessed up to the fact my knowledge of the crime fiction is based almost solely on TV and film adaptations. What I was unaware of at the time was the fact that Alvtegen's n > read more
Knots
Published on 2011-05-10 17:00:00
I do not experience your experience. But I experience you as experiencing. I experience myself as experienced by you. And I experience you as experiencing yourself as experienced by me. And so on. – R D Laing, The Politics of Experience A post ov > read more
The Water Theatre
Published on 2011-05-05 16:45:00
I’ve been a journalist too long to believe that truth is ever a simple thing – Martin Crowther in The Water Theatre When I was a few chapters into this long novel – long by my standards, I’ve never read a novel 433 pages long before – > read more
Pobby and Dingan
Published on 2011-04-30 16:50:00
Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real. – Federico Fellini Newspapers like The Guardian tend to print book reviews during the week a book is released so if you happen to pub > read more
The Pink Hotel
Published on 2011-04-25 17:00:00
The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose. – Richard R. Grant When I first picked up my ARC of the Pink Hotel I can’t say I was enthusiastic it’s probably fair to say. It’s the word ‘pink’. Perhaps a blo > read more
Can you believe the hype?
Published on 2011-04-20 16:50:00
Rabinowitz: What are you reading? Topper Harley: Great Expectations. Rabinowitz: Is it any good? Topper Harley: It's not what I'd hoped for. — Hot Shots: Part Deux This is going to be a great post. Truly great. I’m telling you > read more
Ten Pound Pom
Published on 2011-04-15 17:00:00
[M]emory resides in the guts and arse as well as the head and heart – Niall Griffiths Those of you who, for whatever strange reasons, follow my blog on a regular basis will not be surprised to find that I have never read a travel guide before > read more
My life in comics (well some of it)
Published on 2011-04-10 16:50:00
If people aren’t taught the language of sound and images, shouldn’t they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read or write? – George Lucas I wasn’t a great reader growing up as a kid. My parents never re > read more
Smoke Portrait
Published on 2011-04-05 16:50:00
How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us. – Park Cousins Who of us hasn’t wondered if the people we correspond with online are who they say they are? Often we don’t even have photographs or real name > read more
The glance test
Published on 2011-03-31 16:50:00
How many books do you think the average bookshop carries? 20,000? 50,000? 100,000? Put it this way, Richard Booth's Bookshop. 44, Lion Street, Hay-on-Wye says it has over 1,000,000 books in stock. That’s a lot of books. Of course there are a lot of > read more
Minding my Peas and Cucumbers
Published on 2011-03-26 18:00:00
A charming, oddly moving and genuinely useful book – A. L. Kennedy Okay all I can say in fairness before I start this review is that Kay was on a hiding to nothing when I picked up this book to read. Firstly, and if I’ve told you this story > read more
Procrastinators Anonymous
Published on 2011-03-21 17:50:00
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. – Douglas Adams This post was actually written last August. I kept putting off posting it and now some of its content is out of date.Hi, my name is Jim and I’m a procrasti > read more
Milkweed
Published on 2011-03-16 18:00:00
I looked around. It seemed like any other day to me. Grey. Up the street a man was banging his head against a stone wall. – Jerry Spinelli, Milkweed Somehow over the past wee while I’ve stumbled across a number of books about World War II w > read more
Aggie and Shuggie 31
Published on 2011-03-11 17:00:00
Shuggie: [Knock knock] Aggie. [Knock knock] Aggie. [Knock knock] Aggie. Aggie: Stoap bangin oan ma bedroom door. Yoor no gittin oany. Shug > read more
Mavis's Shoe
Published on 2011-03-06 17:00:00
It seemed the whole world was crying. The grey sky had turned to mist again and the mist had turned to rain and poured down on us with no compassion or kindness. – Sue Reid Sexton, Mavis’s Shoe There have been a number of films made and books w > read more
The Hour of the Star
Published on 2011-02-27 17:00:00
So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing. – Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star When Clarice Lispector was writing the novella The Hour of the Star (A Hora da Estrela) – although ‘assembling’ is pr > read more
Living Souls
Published on 2011-02-20 17:00:00
Think of the wonderful circles in which our whole being moves and from which we cannot escape no matter how we try. The circler circles in these circles. – E. T. A. Hoffmann Living Souls has the feel of a sprawling Russian epic novel – even t > read more
A conversation with Stephen Nelson
Published on 2011-02-13 17:00:00
Stephen Nelson is a Scottish poet who lives in Hamilton. He writes a blog called afterlights which I’ve been following for a couple of years, well lurking around to be honest because I rarely make a comment. It’s not often I have nothing > read more
The Story of Mr Sommer
Published on 2011-02-06 17:00:00
If I had to describe this book in a single sentence I’d probably say: This is a children’s book for grownups. We all enjoy reading children’s stories. The lovely thing is that those of us who have been lucky enough to have children of our own g > read more
It's finished
Published on 2011-01-30 17:00:00
I’m finished. Nearly finished, if I can misquote Beckett, but I imagine he’s used to that. Anyway I’m finished. I finished my fifth novel, Left, at six minutes past three on 20th January 2011. The oldest copy of the text I can find on m > read more
Aggie and Shuggie 30
Published on 2011-01-27 11:46:00
Oggie: Och, ere e comes, tha wounded soja. Shuggie: Mornin, Oggie. A pint o heavy when ye’ve a minute. Oggie: Fer > read more
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Published on 2011-01-23 17:00:00
Pakistan is not just on the brink of the precipice, it’s probably fallen off the precipice, and is accelerating on its way down. — Daniyal Mueenuddin, in interview After reading the eight interlinked stories that make up this coll > read more
What is a book?
Published on 2011-01-16 17:44:00
When you sell a man a book you don't just sell him 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue. You sell him a whole new life. - Christopher Morley What is a book? No, seriously. Think about it for a moment. Is a book a container for words or the wor > read more
The Houses of Belgrade
Published on 2011-01-09 17:00:00
Arsénie Negovan, property-owner, is seventy-seven years old. It is the 3rd of June 1968 and he has not stepped outside his front door since the 27th of March 1941. For the past twenty-seven years he has run his business empire with the aid of his wi > read more
Hash
Published on 2011-01-02 16:50:00
Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it. – John Hersey On 22nd December 1947, a 54-year-old newspaper reporter is standing at his custom-built writing stand composing an article about > read more
Where do all these decades go?
Published on 2010-12-19 17:00:00
Okay so that’s me. I’m taking my annual break. No more from me until 2011. Twenty-eleven – that still sounds so sci-fi to me. As a kid growing up in Scotland in the sixties the 21st century was so far away. That was Gerry-Anderson-land. And now > read more
A response to 'Mr Bleaney'
Published on 2010-12-16 06:00:00
Someone once said that the great thing is not to be different from other people but to be different from yourself. – Philip Larkin in a radio interview Philip Larkin never set out to be a librarian. In fact, according to his biographer, Andrew Mo > read more
Sing Sorrow Sorrow
Published on 2010-12-12 17:00:00
Sing sorrow, sorrow, but may the good prevail – The Oresteia I was reading an article in The Globe and Mail recently about fairy tales part of which I’d like to quote here: Certain fairy tales resemble memes, a term coined by Richard Dawkins > read more
Better halves
Published on 2010-12-09 06:00:00
“At the core of us is a writer, not a human being.” - Anaïs Nin talking about her relationship with Henry Miller So who is the woman in the picture? I struggled to find it. I have photos of her that I could have scanned but I thought it intere > read more