I’ve been spending a lot of time in Canada recently. Entirely in my head of course. Which is possibly the best place to explore a country, or a city as Calvino Continue reading
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I’ve been spending a lot of time in Canada recently. Entirely in my head of course. Which is possibly the best place to explore a country, or a city as Calvino Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window
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Posted in Rosenblum, Rebecca
I’m always impressed by Big Readers. Not as in girth, though that’s impressive too. No, I’m talking about those people who devour books the ways you and I fritter away time on social media sites for example [insert semi-ironic winking smiley]. Continue reading
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Posted in Fitzgerald, F. Scott
You don’t need another self-help book (apart from this one, perhaps?).
It’s good to know though that you, me, Sarah Salway and David Foster Wallace still buy them. Continue reading
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Posted in Salway, Sarah, White, Kenneth
Unless your hypnotherapist records your sessions, it’s unlikely you will ever hear yourself in a regressed state.
Of course we’re regressing, progressing, digressing at any given moment of the day, and that’s OK if you’re OK with it.
Regression is when we put aside the carefully formulated poses of adulthood and return to something more child-like in our response to the world. Continue reading
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Posted in Potter, Tessa
Here’s a jug of story water to put into your morning kettle.
When I was living in Milan in the early 90s, with all the potential and fear that being a young adult entails, the floorboards of our flat would often chant to me:
Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō, Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō, Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō.
It was quite relentless. Mornings, evenings, a constant reverberating drone of confounding vocalisations. I would put my ear to the floor and feel it (also something in me) shiver. Continue reading
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Posted in Rumi
I’m hoping I might get a few complaints about this podcast.
Firstly, as this is a nominal tie-in with the new Granta 119: Britain issue, nothing really says Britain like a good old whinge.
But also because the internet (as a buzzing, virtual gestalt of ourselves) is often driven and impelled by the energy of expostulation. Continue reading
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Posted in Haddon, Mark
You can learn everything and nothing about a person by the virtual breadcrumbs they scatter across the internet that lead you and the Google bot towards them.
Before meeting Janina Matthewson I already knew that she was damn funny and damn sharp. This is thanks to the 140 character slivers of Janina that pop up in my Twitter stream on a daily basis. Continue reading
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Posted in Austen, Jane
The great thing, for me, about RMSYL is the sheer diversity of readers transmitting their love of reading to me, and the texts they choose to do this with.
This afternoon I was in Brompton Library listening and then later discussing Tim The Terrible Tiger with Jane, a reading volunteer.
Tomorrow morning, I’m meeting Edward Espe Brown (Yes! Tassajara Bread Book Espe Brown: 1/3 Gordon Ramsay, 1/3 Shunryu Suzuki, 1/3 Jack Kerouac.) It’s breakfast and Rumi for me + EEB. Then on Friday Continue reading
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Posted in Ducornet, Rikki
One day (I know this is hard to believe) Woody Allen will be no more.
Even worse, you and I will be no more (which still at times feels like news to me). Continue reading
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Posted in Gaiman, Neil
If you haven’t read Jean Kwok‘s short story Where The Gods Fly, you should do so right away.
Three reasons (actually five, but I am culturally nudged into saying three): Continue reading
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Posted in Kwok, Jean, Olson, Tillie