On not knowing very much about anything
Even Tolstoy and Goethe and Proust must have had the odd moment when they wondered if they really knew what they were talking about. Somehow I find that…
“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…
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 the book industry in the UK,…
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…
“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…