Ingredients
Methods of consumption
Greatest Hits…
...Although none of these were ever Number 1s in Azerbaijan, Japan or on college radio.
* On visiting countries that have been the subject of airstrikes by allies of your home country
* Why it's important for The Beatles to make their songs available digitally
* A visit to Peleliu, home of some fascinating WW2 relics and origin of the phrase 'thousand yard stare'
* Five ways to beat writer's block and get words going
* On Holbein and Shakespeare
* The 2011 BHAG, how I cycled 2,011 miles in 12 monthsFrom which department?
This is the past
Category Archives: Books and reading
The best books I read in 2012
A walk, a train ride and another walk; the office to home, the home to the office. It’s a thin but strong thread, past hotels and theatres, schools and council houses. This evening, past a Japanese couple, silk and suit, … Continue reading
Posted in Books and reading
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Year in Reading, 2012 (second half)
Thanks to work, I spent the second half of the year with even more and ever better reading devices than ever before – iPhone 5, retina iPad, Kindles of many stripe – but the list of books read is as … Continue reading
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On Pulphead, the best book I’ve read so far this year
‘It took me several months to make it back, and he grew annoyed. When I finally let myself in through the front door, he didn’t get up from his chair. His form sagged so exaggeratedly into the sofa, it was as … Continue reading
Year in reading, 2012 (first half)
One of the few regular things I’ve done regularly on this blog is tracking books I’ve read; I started the year off by defecting to Pinterest, but got nowhere with it. Something about that layout. For all that people make out … Continue reading
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Some thoughts on the books I read last year
Yes, yes, I’m only getting round to this now. I was going to leave it, but then I was chatting with the Canadienne about The Lighthouse, a strange, light and surprisingly strong Icelandic novel I read in 2011 and I … Continue reading
We all romanticize our youth
INTERVIEWER What about Joseph Conrad? MITCHELL His story “Youth” has this beautiful passage about your first landfall in Asia and how it haunts you for the rest of your life—everything is downhill afterward. There’s something of that in the end … Continue reading
The best book I read last year was The Odyssey
2010 was often a rotten year, both in books and out of books. Not that I am blaming the books you understand. If anything, there was comfort to be taken from the fact the pages did not misunderstand me by … Continue reading
Posted in Books and reading, In My Life
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Added to the wishlist: How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One
[Book] Via a review that’s interesting in and of itself, in the FT: “Fish is a sentence connoisseur who describes his enthusiasm as akin to a sports fan’s love of highlights, and relishes the craft… [The book shows] the form … Continue reading
Books I’ve Read, 2011
Previously: 2005 and 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Kicking this year off with a selection from The Big Book of Dick(TM), a birthday present from a friend with an equally tawdry/literary sensibility. I’ve never never actually read any Philip K. … Continue reading
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Added to the wishlist: On Roads
[Book] Having moved from the North to the Home counties when I was 11, then to York for University, then Norwich, and then London, I grew up on the M1, M6 and A1. Asylum’s lovely review of On Roads meant … Continue reading
