“Crow” by Ted Hughes
I rarely read poetry, but I enjoyed this strange little book by Ted Hughes. It’s full of dark imagery, violence and unexpected humour. The poems read like myths…
Editing
There are different types of writers. Some like to write and rewrite and rewrite endlessly, refining gradually, each draft a little more…
“Ruminations from the Garden” by Don Henry Ford, Jr.
Almost all writers carry a notebook around with them to record thoughts and ideas as they arise. They usually end up being…
Reading binge
I was on a panel recently at Whitechapel Idea Store with Alex Wheatle and Mark Piggott, discussing “London: fact and fiction”. When…
“Ashes” by Matthew Crow
The opening image of Ashes is a powerful one – a group of kids trying to stone a cat to death. The…
“The Dark Child” by Camara Laye
This is a fairly short and simple autobiographical account of a boy growing up in Guinea in the 1930s and 40s. Camara Laye wrote it in 1954 while…
“The Sea” by John Banville
John Banville is a magnificent prose writer. I loved his earlier book Birchwood, so thought I would try out The Sea, which…
“Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman” by Friedrich Christian Delius
A novel in a single sentence. That was what intrigued me about this book. To be honest I generally avoid World War…
Buy Bitmead Books
As regular readers will know, my novel On the Holloway Road was published as a result of winning the Luke Bitmead Writers’…