The ingredients of fiction
Writing fiction is not really about making stuff up. It’s more about making sense of what you already have stored somewhere in your memory or subconscious, dusting it…
“Homage to Catalonia” by George Orwell
Homage to Catalonia is many books in one. It is a piece of journalism – Orwell initially went to Spain in the…
Giveaway: “The World’s Wife” by Carol Ann Duffy
I picked up a free copy of this in New Beacon Books – there was a stack of them left over from…
And the winner is…
I had an interesting experience tonight at the launch of Alex Wheatle’s new book Brenton Brown at Brixton Library. There was a…
“Too Loud a Solitude” by Bohumil Hrabal
The narrator of Too Loud a Solitude is an idiot. His boss despises him, others laugh at him. He drinks beer all…
Tomorrow Pamplona Blog Tour 2011, Gig 12
Dutch author Jan van Mersbergen is on a blog tour to promote his new book Tomorrow Pamplona, visiting a different literary blog each day and answering one question…
Summer reads
Nice list of summer reads posted by largeheartedboy, linking to all the “books you must read this summer” lists. I like lists,…
RIP Brian Haw
Was saddened this week to hear of the death of peace activist Brian Haw. There are not too many people in these…
In conversation with Preeta Samarasan
I spoke recently with Malaysian writer Preeta Samarasan, and am posting the conversation up here for you to listen to. In part…