Now *this* is what I call eye-candy…
An entire website dedicated to Bookshelf Porn.
Go on…You know you want to….
http://bookshelfporn.com/archive
Grace Kelly Style Icon at the V&A…
In a nutshell, if you are a big fan of Grace Kelly, and are able to bring an extensive knowledge of her life, both pre and post-Hollywood, then this one’s for you. Sadly however, I was not in this target audience, so ended up feeling somewhat underwhelmed.
In part, this is because I went along [...]
Joshua Bell busking out a little Bach for Maxidus…
To me, this clip is both unbelievably uplifting, and yet somehow tragic as well. First there is the obvious top note, where the sublime Joshua Bell meets the transcendental Bach. But running underneath, there’s also the relentless rhythm of rush-hours the world over, in which everyone is too fraught and harassed to spot beauty, [...]
The Fiddle of Fiddles…
In a video clip on the Guardian’s website, Joshua Bell plays the Vieuxtemps del Gesù, which is about to go to auction for a record-breaking asking price of $18 million. In the clip below he explains why his infatuation for this pinnacle of violins just keeps on growing. There’s an advert with dodgy sound at [...]
In our house, Saturday tends to rhyme with baking
The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook by Tarek Malouf
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book had the endorsement of two trusted sources before I even opened the cover. The first was my friend Laurel, who is an outstanding cook, and who sent me this for my birthday.
The second reason to be hopeful was [...]
Five stars for ‘The Believers’ by Zoe Heller
The Believers by Zoë Heller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve just this minute finished this extraordinary novel, so will need more time to properly gather my thoughts. Although I would recommend it without reservation, I’m not sure I can really say I enjoyed it, so much as admired it enormously.
For the first [...]
You are always close…
Late to the party as usual, I have only just seen Kseniya Simonov’s astonishing sand animation depicting the German Invasion of the Ukraine. It’s utterly staggering to see what she achieves just by manipulating sand, and the way she does it is like a virtuoso musical performance. It amazes me that this was an entry [...]
If you’re only going to subscribe to one new blog this week…
Here’s a quick round up of some of the blogs I’ve especially enjoyed this week, or am simply intrigued by.
In no particular order…
PELICANIMAGES PHOTOGRAPHIC BLOG
What Lee says about his blog: “I remember when I was small; looking up in a snowstorm and following snowflakes as they fell onto my face. I wondered then that no-one [...]
If you’re only going to subscribe to one new blog this week…
Here’s a quick round up of some of the blogs I’ve either just discovered, or have particularly enjoyed this week. In no particular order…
LETTERS OF NOTE
What Shaun says about his blog: “Letters of Note is an attempt to gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos. Scans/photos where possible. Fakes will be [...]
Blood Harmonies
Back in October when I first began blogging about the new novel I’m working on, I said felt a bit superstitious about revealing the title too soon. So in the meantime, I’ve been using the working title The Quartet while I’ve been getting on with it, and at first this seemed to make sense.
However, [...]
Haggis is a meal, for a’ that
I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of ritual lately in the course of working on my new novel, Blood Harmonies. One of the central characters, Zoe Mendel, has been brought up in a rarefied world, steeped in tradition, both public and private. In trying to unpick exactly what is driving Zoe’s private rituals, [...]
Home is where the wind chill is….
I’m writing this from ‘home’ which – although it pains me to say it – is a short drive from Niagara Falls.
I use the word ‘home‘ loosely, since this is a place I’ve never actually lived, but have been calling ‘home’ since my parents made the decision to retire here in the mid [...]
Who among us is really safe? Not you, not your children…
Uh-oh…
That’s the first thing which came to mind when I saw the photo on the front of Tom Fletcher’s new chapbook The Safe Children. With a cover like this, I didn’t have to read it to know it would be disturbing, but I thoroughly recommend that you do. Read it that is.
In retrospect, it [...]
Michael Marshall Smith’s new chapbook is altogether too dark…
One of the more interesting independent publishers to appear on the scene of late is Nightjar Press. They’ve started with a series of limited edition chapbooks by two much-loved genre writers, Michael Marshall Smith and Tom Fletcher. The other day I received a copy of the Marshall Smith title and, if this unsettling tale is [...]
The beautiful impossibility of having a favourite book
At tonight’s book group meeting, instead of simply discussing the books we’ve read this month, the chairwoman has suggested that we each come armed with a list of our favourite books to discuss.
The notion ‘favourite book’, like ‘favourite song, or ‘favourite film’, is both straightforward and yet utterly impossible. The minute I think I’ve chosen, [...]
Reading by proxy…
Recently I joined a book group, and three months in, I was already having trouble keeping up. On the face of it, December’s book, The Road Home by Rose Tremain should have been an ideal choice for me. For one thing, it’s another take on the migrant experience, and this normally has a natural [...]
Novel Locations in Paris
Writing a novel is all about choices. What to include, what to cut, where to set it, who to live vicariously through. We’re just back from a short-break to Paris during which, among other things, I had a chance to revisit some of the choices I’d made in my crime novel This He Did Without Remorse.
Plot Outline for ‘Blood Harmonies’
The Quartet was born when three chance pieces of information fused in my head. The first came when I happened to turn on Radio 4 near the end of programme in which the leader of a string quartet (sadly, I didn’t catch his name) was talking about the process his ensemble were going through to find a new First Violin, and how a psychologist had asked to observe.
Why set a Bosnia novel in Paris?
When I started writing This He Did Without Remorse several people asked me why I’d chosen to set it in Paris. Since much of the plot turns on the fallout from events which happened in Bosnia, wouldn’t Sarajevo have been a more obvious choice of location? Perhaps. Except the book isn’t really about Bosnia, it’s [...]
Another Sleepless Night
Tonight’s pre-occupation was brought to me care of Audrey Niffenegger who I had the good fortune to hear speaking at an event Foyle’s put on at the Bloomsbury Theatre here in London. At one point she was talking about how crucial the Chicago setting of The Time Traveller’s Wife was to her, and how heartbreaking it had been to learn that the screen adaptation was filmed in Toronto. Then shortly after this she mentioned…
STOP ME by Richard Jay Parker
In the interests of sanity preservation, I have learned to avoid reading things which are designed keep me lying awake listening for crowbars against doorjambs in the night. So, under normal circumstances, just seeing the cover of Stop Me by Richard Jay Parker would have been enough to make me shiver and look away now.
Fortunately, [...]
