fiction

Bertie Wooster v. Christopher Robin

P.G.Wodehouse and A.A. Milne were the same age and in 1941 they were both close to 60. As young men…

4 years ago

#6Degrees From the Gulf of Siam to Pianosa via Anglesey

 "Phosphorescence is a process in which energy absorbed by a substance is released relatively slowly in the form of light.…

4 years ago

From Hamnet to The Water Dancer in Six Moves #6Degrees

One book leads to another. Six Degrees of Separation comes via Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Readers…

4 years ago

#6Degrees Freestyle

The November #6degrees is freestyle. Instead of everyone starting in the same place with the same book, each participant starts…

4 years ago

The Book Chain: Six Degrees and the Invention of Sex

Long before the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, bookish teens had Iris Murdoch. As the poet Philip Larkin…

4 years ago

“Gervase, I’ve Lost a Toy Shop”

Always fun to find half-remembered books. One bonus of this decluttering lark is that you find so many of them.…

5 years ago

From Minty to Moses – the Extraordinary Fierce and Fearless Harriet Tubman

In September we heard Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Oprah Winfrey at the Apollo in NYC. The topic was his…

5 years ago

Angela Brazil, the Tribal World of School and School Change

Scooterons-nous vite. It's Back to School with Angela Brazil Long before Harry Potter - and indeed long before all those…

5 years ago

Pulp Fiction Surprise

Just over 20 years ago now a teacher walked into my office and said that he had just found a…

5 years ago

The Art of Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

Two Sundays, two documentaries and two very satisfactory movie experiences. The first was Maiden at The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY.…

5 years ago

The View from the Room

It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor…

5 years ago

Falling Wall

I began this post in 2017. The original focus was Louis MacNeice's's poem "Brother Fire". MacNeice was a fire-watcher during…

6 years ago

Saplings

I'm not giving anything away by quoting the deep irony of the last lines of Saplings: Turns you over, don’t…

7 years ago

Choosing books by the cover

I once worked in a school where the librarian arranged the non-fiction by the color of the spine. It made…

7 years ago

Discovery and Uncovery

We all love to rumble on about lifelong learning . But how does that happen when learning is presented as…

9 years ago