Invasion of the Body Snatchers
At one time I used to listen regularly to The Archers. That was long ago when I was living alone in a flat in Birmingham, working on my PhD. I knew I had to get out more when I found myself listening to episodes for the third time in the Omnibus edition. Then there were […]
American Hustle
We saw this scam movie at the cinema last week. There weren’t any huge surprises. I felt it was a bit long and would have been improved by tighter editing. For me any film that runs over two hours has to earn its keep. In the end this did, because the acting was superb. It […]
Too much information?
I have nearly finished writing my review of Hermione Lee’s biography of Penelope Fitzgerald for the Journal of William Morris Studies and I have mixed feelings. Hermione Lee writes that ‘perhaps self-deceivingly, I have felt while writing this book that [Penelope] might not have disapproved of me as her biographer – if there must be […]
Ghost Stories
On Christmas Day we watched ‘The Tractate Middoth,’ an M. R. James ghost story adapted and directed by Mark Gatiss. It was enjoyable, but I don’t think M. R. James is all that easy to adapt. So much of the pleasure of reading him is in the tone of the writing. More interesting for me […]
Reading resolutions
This is a good time to take stock of the previous year and plan for the next one. For me the reading highlight of 2013 had to be Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate. It towered above everything else. What a book, and what a man.The crime novel that’s stuck in my mind is one that […]
Birthday
It was my birthday on the 18th December – and also that of my Italian friend, Daniella, who informed that we share a birthday with Brad Pitt. Apparently it is his 50th and that is hot news in the Italian media. Brad Pitt? Fifty? It seems just the other day that he was the young […]
Low Spirits
It’s that time of year. It’s dark when I wake up and dark again by the time my daughter gets home. A succession of grey days when it never seems to get properly light sends my spirits plummeting. My friend Sue has been been feeling low, too: no secret as she has been blogging about […]
Lost in a Book
I had a day in London yesterday and travelling on the tube between Piccadilly and King’s Cross I sat opposite a young man who was totally engrossed in his SF novel, Frank Herbert’s Heretics of Dune. He was far away, on another planet. One of the consequences of people reading so much electronically is that […]
Endings
I’ve just read Norwegian by Night, by Derek B. Miller. It won the CWA John Creasey Dagger for best debut novel this year and it was a worthy winner. Sheldon Horowitz, elderly watch-repairer and Korean veteran, suffering from dementia, is living in Oslo with his grandaughter when he witnesses the murder of a young woman […]