“Amsterdam” by Ian McEwan
This was a good, quick read. An interesting story that explores several moral issues such as euthanasia and privacy rights. Another theme is the yearning for greatness and…
Books arrived!
When I first decided to quit my sensible career job and focus on writing, I suppose this is the day I had…
“An Artist of the Floating World” by Kazuo Ishiguro
An elderly, celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, is living in retirement in Japan just after the end of World War Two. His daughter…
Article in The Bookseller
There was a nice piece about my novel On the Holloway Road in The Bookseller recently. It’s the main business magazine for…
Extract from Susan Sontag’s diary
“X” is when you feel yourself an object, not a subject. when you want to please and impress people, either by saying what they want to hear, or…
“The Question of Bruno” by Aleksandar Hemon
The writing grabbed me from page one: there is a real rhythm to it, and the description is beautiful. The first story…
How to explain the credit crunch to a five-year-old
1. The government promised Mummy and Daddy they would be happy if they spent their lives working to make someone else rich.…
“Prisons we choose to live inside” by Doris Lessing
"Of course, there are original minds, people who do take their own line, who do not fall victim to the need to…