On the Holloway Road on the Holloway Road
I went to do a stock signing at Blackwell’s on the Holloway Road last week. It was great to see the book on sale on the Holloway Road…
“The Savage Detectives” by Roberto Bolano
If I describe the plot of this book, it will sound incredibly boring. Even a brief summary is boring, unless of course…
My book is a bestseller*
* in Crouch End. Hey, it may not be the New York Times bestseller list, but it made me proud when I…
Ismail Kadare and dissent
Interesting piece in The Guardian recently about the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare and his alleged ties to the Hoxha regime. I went…
London Buses #1
One of the things I love about London is riding the double-decker buses. You see things differently from up there on the…
“The Enchantress of Florence” by Salman Rushdie
I don’t quite know what to make of this book. There were so many storylines in so many countries at so many different times, all overlapping and sloshing…
New Kerouac novel
I was excited to read recently that Jack Kerouac’s unpublished first novel The Sea is my Brother is to be published next…
“The Unconsoled” by Kazuo Ishiguro
Have you ever had one of those dreams where you are trying to get somewhere but things keep going wrong? You get…
“The Anatomy of Prose” by Marjorie Boulton
This is a rigorous 1950s analysis of prose, seeking to classify different elements of prose as you would classify insects or flowers.…