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Buddhaland Brooklyn
I now believe enlightenment is a simple state: it is the ability to suffer what there is to suffer; it is the ability to enjoy what there is to enjoy. – Richard Morais, Buddhaland BrooklynAlan...
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Everybody lie down and no one gets hurt
As long as necessity is socially dreamed, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of a modern society in chains and ultimately expresses nothing more than its wish for...
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The Tiny Wife
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. – Franz Kafka, The MetamorphosisIf you’ve read The Tiny Wife I imagine you’re...
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The value of privacy (part two)
Computers didn't kill privacy.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't kill privacy.So who killed privacy? We all did, of course. Accidentally, perhaps.Or maybe, like the fairies in Peter Pan, privacy only...
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The case for self-editing
Writing is rewriting. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with the first draft to the point where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the...
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Bitter Like Orange Peel
If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. – Kahlil Gibran, The Wanderer (quoted in Bitter Like Orange Peel) Who is Roger Price? That’s the...
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The Crane Wife
George was eight, and at eight the definition of normal is whatever is happening in front of you. – Patrick Ness, The Crane Wife As I was going through this book I highlighted only a single passage:...
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Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
“I am inclined to think— ” said I.“I should do so,” Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of FearI have to be careful what I say here because Watsonian thinkers like...
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Are you a virtual litter lout?
Say what you have to say and get off the page – Me.I’ve been writing for forty years. Longer actually. That’s a long time. I could tote up how many novels, novellas, short stories, flash fictions,...
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The First True Lie
They always say that you shouldn’t tell lies, but without lies I’d already be in an orphanage – Marina Mander, The First True LieI’ve a problem with books narrated by young children and I’ve read a few...
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Carnaby Street’s Great Uninvited – Around the World in 80 Years
Words are all we have – Samuel Beckett There are too many words in the English language. And yet more and more are being coined every day. Why? You’d honestly think by now there would be a word for...
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Under the Skin
Mulder: They're here, aren't they?Deep Throat: Mr. Mulder, they've been here for a long long time.I should’ve read this book a long time ago. I knew of it but didn’t know much about it. I didn’t know...
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Five Came Back
Yes. This really happened. – The Battle of MidwayOne thing I can say about Mark Harris with regard to his book Five Came Back—which is basically a study of how the American film industry was changed...
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Get real
If you think people in your life are normal, then you undoubtedly have not spent any time getting to know the abnormal side of them. ― Shannon L. AlderStigma—or, more specifically, social stigma was...
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A Million Ways to Die in the West
So, all I gotta do is get Foy to let me shoot seventy-one times before he shoots, and I win. – Seth MacFarlane, A Million Ways to Die in the West A Million Ways to Die in the West reads like a...
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Gone are the Leaves
All the leaves were gone and they stood, reaching out their branches, like empty arms – Anne Donovan, Gone are the LeavesI agreed to review this book having had a quick scan of Anne Donovan’s first...
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Au Reservoir
You mark my words, Georgie, total victory is in sight – Guy Fraser-Sampson, Au ReservoirAs the title suggests this is a goodbye novel. It’s Guy Fraser-Sampson’s third and final crack at recreating the...
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Used poetry
There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it. – Charles Caleb ColtonI think it’s time someone...
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Bed of Coals: an introduction to the poetry of Joseph Hutchison
My wife, happening upon my journal, said:“Writers are crueller than normal people.”—Joseph Hutchison, ‘March 10: “From an Unmailed Letter”’W.S. Merwin opens his 1968 essay, ‘On Open Form’ with the...
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My Biggest Lie
You want your crime to be greater than it is so you can excuse yourself from redeeming yourself. Excuse yourself from the hard work of getting on with your life. – Luke Brown, My Biggest Lie The first...
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