So all the newspapers have been publishing their end-of-year roundups. Some even started back in November. Here’s why I won’t be doing my own little roundup of the best books of 2010. Basically, it’s because I haven’t read very many of them. Don’t get me wrong, I do read quite a lot. But the thing [...]
Archive | 2010
Pigeon-feeding inflation
The cost of feeding the birds has gone up a lot. It only cost Mary Poppins tuppence a bag, but in Trafalgar Square today it’ll cost you £500, according to an aggressively-worded sign that confronted me as I left the National Gallery the other day. Now I’m sure there are sensible, practical reasons for this [...]
Cezanne at the Courtauld Gallery
Went to see an interesting exhibit recently at the Courtauld Gallery on the Strand. What I liked about it was that instead of just showing the paintings themselves, they built a whole exhibition around the artist’s process for these particular paintings, showing his preliminary sketches, talking about his ideas and motivations, etc. The permanent collection, [...]
“Best European Fiction 2010″ edited by Aleksandar Hemon
This was a very interesting collection of short stories from around Europe. There’s one piece from each country, so it really felt like a broad and varied collection rather than being weighted toward particular countries. One thing I didn’t like is that some of them were extracts from longer pieces, which I don’t think works [...]
Roelof Bakker, ‘Still’, Hornsey Town Hall
Just wanted to give a belated mention to a really good photography exhibition in Crouch End recently. It was a series of photographs of Hornsey Town Hall, an Art Deco listed building that has been minimally used for a long time now. After Hornsey was absorbed into the larger borough of Haringey in the 1960s, [...]
“Crow” by Ted Hughes
I rarely read poetry, but I enjoyed this strange little book by Ted Hughes. It’s full of dark imagery, violence and unexpected humour. The poems read like myths of the origins of the world, except that at the middle of them all is Crow, this anarchic, chaotic, ugly, violent figure, playing tricks on God and [...]
Editing
There are different types of writers. Some like to write and rewrite and rewrite endlessly, refining gradually, each draft a little more perfect than the last. I am not that type of writer. I am the type of writer who likes to get it right first time and then move on to the next thing. [...]
“Ruminations from the Garden” by Don Henry Ford, Jr.
Almost all writers carry a notebook around with them to record thoughts and ideas as they arise. They usually end up being quite random, a mix of the brilliant and the mundane, day-to-day worries mixed in with the germs of big ideas. To get an idea of what the inside of a writer’s notebook looks [...]
Reading binge
I was on a panel recently at Whitechapel Idea Store with Alex Wheatle and Mark Piggott, discussing “London: fact and fiction”. When I heard a week in advance what the topic was going to be, I thought about all the famous London books I hadn’t read, starting with Alex Wheatle’s and taking in other big [...]
“Ashes” by Matthew Crow
The opening image of Ashes is a powerful one – a group of kids trying to stone a cat to death. The reason? “Something to do”. The tone is set for the rest of the novel. Bleakness, lack of hope, pointless violence, misdirected anger, innocent victims. The setting is Meadow Well council estate in North-East [...]
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Alice: Awesome! Good Luck! *pops off to vote*...
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litlove: I'll be voting! Good luck - and congratulations o...
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Andrew Blackman: Yes, it is a kitchen garden really. Good idea abou...
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