Reading Review of Dodge and Burn by Seraphina Madsen Imagine Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Hunter Thompson engaging in a wild, drug-fuelled orgy somewhere out in the Arizona desert, and by some mystical…
LivingThe writing process Creative block? It’s not about the time In even the busiest lives, there are pockets of time in which extra things could be accomplished. But these are times when…
Literary events New Bitmead Bursary Winner Announced Winning the Luke Bitmead Bursary back in 2008 changed my life in many ways, some of which I’ve detailed on the blog…
Reading Why I still love bookshops I’ve written about bookshops a lot on this blog over this years. There’s a good reason for this. For me, good bookshops…
Literary events Q&A with the founders of new indie publisher Dodo Ink Dodo Ink is a new independent publisher in the UK, promising to publish “bold, daring, risky but accessible literary novels”. They’re currently…
Living The best of people The more I see of the world, the more I realise that we’re really quite limited as a species. In small groups, we can…
Reading Review of All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld The first thing to say about this book is that the prose is just stunning. It had me hooked from the first…
Reading The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner: Review I think I have a problem with over-hyped books. Although the hype is never true, I always end up believing it, and…
Reading Jacks Hill Road by Jennifer Grahame We’ve all driven down one of those streets, haven’t we? One of those streets where the lawns are manicured, the pavements are…