Good review
On the Holloway Road got a nice review from a fellow writer and blogger, Helen J Beal. I found it particularly encouraging because she hates travelogues and Kerouac,…
Miscellaneous facts about bees
Sorry, this has nothing to do with reading, or writing, or anything else this blog is supposed to be about. I just…
Monday morning inspiration
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear…
“The Gentle Spirit” by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky is one of my favourite writers. I discovered him in my teenage years, read as many of his books as I…
Monday morning inspiration
“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.” – William…
American vs. British readers
Some interesting analysis of US and UK reading habits, courtesy of the summer edition of The Author magazine: American readers prefer romance; British ones prefer literary fiction Men…
“The Lazarus Project” by Aleksandar Hemon
There are three separate stories in this book: one is the killing of Russian Jewish immigrant Lazarus Averbuch by the Chicago Chief…
Monday morning inspiration
“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them.…
“Thoughts” by Giacomo Leopardi
The book was unfinished in Leopardi's lifetime, and perhaps the finished version would have been brilliant. This sequence of half-formed thoughts and…