Andrew Blackman, literary fiction writer, traveller, book reviewer and essayist

Reading

Dominoes by Phoebe McIntosh

Dominoes by Phobe McIntosh explores important issues of race and identity, while through its heart runs a classic tale of star-crossed lovers.

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 12: Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

In “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, Borges plays with ideas of authorship and originality by inventing a French Symbolist poet who embarks on the impossible task of composing Don…

Reading

Danny Boy by Barry Walsh

My review of Danny Boy by Barry Walsh, a novel of beautifully drawn relationships and the sometimes funny, sometimes painful experience of growing up on a council estate in 1960s…

Reading

Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks

My review of Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks, a fast-paced piece of literary fiction set among the Caribbean diaspora in 1970s London.

Reading

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos

When I moved to New York City as a 22-year-old, I immediately loved the chaotic, frenetic energy of the place. I’d grown up in London, another big city, but this…

Reading

November 2022 Reading Roundup

It was an all-fiction month for me in November, involving a 17-year-old sex worker in the US, a novelist seeing her stolen manuscript come to life, a young woman fleeing…

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 11: The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim

Only Borges could get away with writing a book review of a book that doesn't exist.

Thinking

Welcome to another of my occasional rants about the use and misuse of the English language. Previous entries have included people who talk about their bandwidth and the irritating habit of writing “See what I did there?” after a pun.…

Reading

Reading Roundup for October 2022

This month, I read a dense Serbian novel, an analysis of capitalism as a snake eating its own tail, and a couple of Elizabeth Strout's latest novels.

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 10: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

What would a world with no objective reality look like? How about a language with no nouns? Jorge Luis Borges explores these ideas in a fascinating thought experiment.

Reading

Snow by John Banville: Review

I was surprised by Snow: it's very different from John Banville's usual style. There's some beautiful prose as usual, but in the end it's quite a formulaic detective novel.