How chimps mourn their dead
I was just going through some old magazines and came across a fascinating article in New Scientist – web version here. It describes how chimpanzees were observed carrying…
Monday morning inspiration
“Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.” —Red Smith (On reflection, not sure if this…
PLR petition
As a follow-up to my recent post about the threatened cuts to the Public Lending Right, I was happy to get an…
Monday morning inspiration
“I write a little every day, without hope and without despair.” —Isak Dinesen (For this quote, and a few others I’ve used…
“On Writing” by Stephen King
This is a book of two halves: part memoir, part writing advice. When I first read it, about ten years ago, I…
“Allah’s Garden” by Thomas Hollowell
This is an interesting book about a conflict that has been going for decades and yet rarely grabs the headlines. When Western Sahara won its independence from Spain…
Monday morning inspiration
“The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.”…
“Last Orders” by Graham Swift
In a way, the plot of Last Orders is very simple: a group of friends drive to the coast to scatter the…
“The Porcupine” by Julian Barnes
What I liked about this book was the complexity of its characters. It tells the story of a former Communist dictator being…