The Good Life Elsewhere: A Dark Moldovan Comedy of Migration
To describe The Good Life Elsewhere by Moldovan writer Vladimir Lorchenkov as a comedy is slightly misleading. It’s certainly shot through with black humour and absurd situations…
Read to Your Children. They’ll Thank You for It
It’s International Literacy Day today, and I’d like to talk about fostering a love of reading. Recent research by Egmont shows that…
August Reading Roundup
How was your reading month? I had a good one, recovering from my slump in July and making some great discoveries. Here…
What Would Radical Happiness Look Like?
How can you be happy when others are suffering? It’s a question that’s bothered me throughout my life. Part of the problem,…
July Reading Roundup
I’ve been overwhelmed with work and travel lately and have got out of the habit of blogging. But I’m going to return…
Cultural Time Zones and the Global City
What is a cultural time zone? Think of tennis, says Melissa Tandiwe Myambo in a fascinating essay in New Left Review. On the international…
See What I Did There?
Has anyone else noticed an annoying trend in contemporary writing? OK, there are probably several that spring to mind (“I was sat?”),…
Chernobyl Prayer: Svetlana Alexievich’s Heart-Breaking Oral History
When I visited Belarus last year, I thought I’d read some Belarusian literature, and what better writer to start with than Svetlana…
April Reading Roundup
Time for another roundup. My month was consumed on the blog with the Radetzky March readalong, but in between that, I also…