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Continue reading →: A couple of posts worth reading
I am busy recording a new podcast (finally!) with my good friend, Nicholas Graham (author of the highly-acclaimed The Judas Case), this afternoon. It’s a special Christmas one and so we’ve got guys in to spruce us up and make us look less shoddy than we usually do. Well –…
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Continue reading →: Film Review: The Thursday Murder Club
“…if you love this series of books…stay well away from the movie. It will actually hurt you….” If you’ve followed my posts for long enough, you should recall that I absolutely adore Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series. I’m not a great fan of detective novels, nor of murder mysteries…
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Continue reading →: The Power of PoetryI don’t often boast about my work as a teacher (outside of my professional promotions, of course) but I do like to think that I taught poetry well to my English students over the last twenty years or so, largely because I don’t like – and don’t understand – poetry.…
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Continue reading →: An Interview with Northern VoicesAs I announced earlier in the week, I was interviewed by Jen Bowden for Northern Voices. In the interview I talked about my book, The Pukur, my life and work in Bangladesh, theatre and the difficulties facing writers in the north – specifically my neck of the words, Cumbria. I…
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Continue reading →: Book interview coming (and other news)No sooner did I announce in April that I was going to start a subscriber service here where you could pay what you want (including nothing at all) to read my posts, than everything went to shit around me and both reading and writing came to a grinding halt. My…
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Continue reading →: A Statement of Intention
Today I would like to make a ‘sort-of’ announcement. I say ‘sort of’ because I’m up to my eyeballs in stuff right now and I know this may take some time to happen or may even not happen at all. But if it does, I want you all to be…
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Continue reading →: Book Review: The Roman Mysteries XIV – The Beggar of Volubilis by Caroline Lawrence
“…a damned good yarn that stretches things a little bit…” After the super story that was book XIII, it was going to be a hard act to follow for Caroline Lawrence. She doesn’t quite manage it with this outing but then there’s a sense that this may be intentional. We’re…
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Continue reading →: For Whom the Book Tolls Episode 5: End Times by Peter Turchin and The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Our fifth outing – and at our age we’re struggling to do the counting now! Nicholas and I discuss a non-fiction book – End Times by Peter Turchin – which leads to a discussion of a work of fiction – The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. What makes political…
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Continue reading →: Book Review: End Times by Peter Turchin
“…a terrific book to get the brain juices going…(but) doesn’t put its money where its mouth is…” This was a fascinating book suggested to me by my fellow podcaster, Nicholas Graham, and one we may well talk about in our next podcast. End Times is far from a perfect work,…
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Continue reading →: Book Review: The Roman Mysteries XIII – The Slave-girl from Jerusalem by Caroline Lawrence
“…I was totally unprepared for the ending…” We’re back with our old friends, the child detectives, and many of their companions. This time we’ve got a classic story: murder victims and a slave-girl who’s in the frame for the crime. Along the way, Lawrence gives us a whole stack of…
