Clik here to view.
Old stories, old music
From a friend who told me she had started to re-read the Brothers Grimm to tell the stories to her young son, discovering unremembered darkness within the familiar tales, to one of the last books I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tales of the Unexpected with Roald Dahl
As the autumn nights drain the colour from the day, I find that dipping into Roald Dahl’s short stories makes for a suspenseful evening read. Dark, disturbing, direct, Dahl’s tales take the reader into...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A year in books – 2014 – John Maguire
Since I purchased myself a Reading Chair, my reading habits have become far more structured this year. It’s true I still read haphazardly in between appointments and on my daily commute on the buses of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Letters of Note: Shaun Usher
Who is it that writes these days? We all send emails, text messages, tweets and status updates on social media and become digital Pavlovian dogs, jumping each time the phone beeps. Personal mail,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Big Little Library, Liverpool
A few years ago, ten million hardbacks celebrated a book depository in Liverpool. A place in a local shopping centre designated solely for the community to leave books they no longer needed and to pick...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Struwwelpeter: Heinrich Hoffman
Children have a fixation with the downright gruesome. I found this out when I recently re-discovered the picture book Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffman. My six year old nephew, the kid, has become...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Crow Road: Iain Banks
This is about cosy reads. That sounds like a harsh term when viewed in isolation, but it’s one I like to use. Cosy read: A book you’ve read dozens of times and can almost recite passages from or, at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Danny the Champion of the World review: meet Roald Dahl’s mischievous heroes
So far in this series I’ve looked at books which informed my teenage political thought (Nineteen Eighty-Four), made me want to become a writer (Rage) and books that I re-read once a year without fail...
View Article
