running, reading, nonsense.
There are all manner of Best of 2019 and Best of the Decade lists to sift through to find out what has been missed, and that’s how I came to read Kevin Barry’s Night Boat to Tangier. Getting to art through the medium of someone else telling you that is Very Good creates unfairly high… Continue reading Night Boat to Tangier
With the New Year coming around the corner the time to make resolutions is upon us. But I’m not really one for patience. What I want to do, with this blog at least, is make it a little more focused, and a lot more full. Sunday Morning Stuff will continue as the place for me… Continue reading Lost Hills
Here we are on Hallows Eve, and I’m taking on a really classic classic in celebration. It is a story that we all know, or a story that we all think we know at the very least. In the afterglow of having actually read the book for myself, I can say most certainly that I… Continue reading Frankenstein
It's Halloween week. For the most part I really don't care about that, sorry, but as you may already know I am using it as an excuse to expand my horror knowledge by getting in to some classic genre fiction. Yesterday I went cult, today I'm going full blown mainstream blockbuster horror writing. It could… Continue reading The Shining
Great? Or over-rate[ed]?
'First... First beer. To save your legs, an entire keg.'
The Coen brothers adaptation of this novel was my first glimpse into the world of Cormac McCarthy, but it was only recently that I read the source material to gather my thoughts on the novel, and one of my favourite authors in general.
It is difficult to know where to start with a book like this. I see little point in divulging any details of the plot as, for one, I do not believe the nuts and bolts of the narrative are as important as the language, the philosophy, and the general feeling of the novel. It would… Continue reading One Hundred Years of Solitude
The honest truth is that when I first read Fahrenheit 451, I was underwhelmed. It is almost unfair, the weight of expectation that a book like this holds. Not only is it a certified “classic” studded with historical praise and numerous awards, it is a book that I expected to love. So, with the glorious 60th anniversary edition in hand, I return to Ray Bradbury’s most famous work. Why? I feel like I missed something
There are few stories as pervasive in pop culture as that of Cathy and Heathcliff, and we can see its retelling everywhere. But how does the original novel fare in 2019?
run into words 