I’m usually late to the party when it comes to exciting new things. By the time I discover the author, or hear the band, or whatever, there will already be a large body of work behind them and a fanatical group of followers will have already formed. I’m used to it now, being one stepContinue reading “Penguin’s Great Ideas and the Eradication of the Foreword”
Category Archives: stuff
Nanowrimo fail
This years Nanowrimo (the annual event in which writers attempt to write a novel (or 50,000 words of one) in the month of November, hence NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth) was my best attempt yet. I managed 6000 words or, to put it another way, 12%. Neither way of expressing it sounds particularly good. In binaryContinue reading “Nanowrimo fail”
The last month or so
A few weeks ago I started a post about how I was nearly finished reading Moby Dick and that, since it was one of the two things on a bucket list I had been asked to write as part of an evening course I had been taking, my life was almost complete. Then, that afternoon,Continue reading “The last month or so”
A Break From Fiction
I finished reading the third volume of 1Q84. I tried to drag it out for as long as I could but it had to happen eventually. There is a lovely quote (that I am probably going to mis-remember and I can’t even look up because I don’t remember who said it. I only just aboutContinue reading “A Break From Fiction”
Re-reading old favourites; The Virgin Suicides
I don’t tend to re-read books very often. Sometimes I dip back in and read little bits, but not the whole book. Whenever I pick an old favourite off the shelf I end up feeling like I ought to stop and read something new. As though time is so precious and finite that there isn’tContinue reading “Re-reading old favourites; The Virgin Suicides”