IntroductionQuote... today I find it an impossible book — badly written, clumsy and embarrassing, its images frenzied and confused,... but a book which, as its impact has shown and continues to show, has a strange knack of seeking out its fellow-revellers and enticing them on to new secret paths and dancing-places. - Nietzsche (talking about this book). Notes🔥 Taking another break from the history book list to read The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche. 🔥 Nietzsche was born near Leipzig,…
Margaret Laurence was born one hundred years ago today. Is recognition appropriate in a blog devoted to Canada's forgotten, neglected, and suppressed writing? I'd say so. Laurence was popular and celebrated in her day and remains so today, yet she was also a lightning rod for censors.Leading the charge was Reverend Sam Buick of Peterborough's Dublin Street Pentecostal Church, who considered The Diviners blasphemous, adulterous, and profane. Did his ire have something to do with his similarity…
↳ “But is it, is it like the old Playboy magazine? You have essays there by the modern-day equivalent of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Junior?” Justice Samuel Alito, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025). I’ve been reading a lot of Playboy recently. For the articles. This is not a joke, although it used to be one.
Jude, in her need to safely navigate the treacherous world of Faerie, finds herself catching a tiger by the tail. I’m not the target audience for this, and that’s fine. The writing is fine, as is the world-building, and the characters. They are on par with what I’d expect from this genre, and it’s fine. A bit tropey at times, but, again, that’s to be expected. I'd have liked more political intrigue, and perhaps more layers to both story and characters, but that's not the point of this book.…
My writing elsewhere ▷ In the software-company circles I’m in, the talk is all about using AI to go faster. The presumption is that you can take that thing you estimated at a year and build it in a month. I say you’re solving the wrong problem. Read You’re about to use AI to build the wrong thing faster Best of the blogs ▷ David‘s article about how rare it is for people to actually try to achieve things helped me feel better this week about my software consultancy hitting a bumpy period. I…
Tracing the life of a English Baron’s daughter, who, on her way to becoming US ambassador to France, was Winston Churchill’s beloved daughter-in-law. I knew nothing about Pamela Harrison whatsoever when I started reading this, and I think I’d have both enjoyed and benefitted more from this biography had I been aware of her beforehand. She lived an interesting life, but I lacked context for some of the assertions about Pamela. Being considered one of history’s greatest courtesans is compelling,…
Currently reading this book and enjoying it so far. In here a facist party seize power in Ireland. It’s told from the perspective of a woman with multiple children. Interesting and current topic in our political situation with the rise of racist and facist parties around the world.
The Ghost Breakers (1940)
An end of week recap “My life, I realize suddenly, is July. Childhood is June, and old age is August, but here it is, July, and my life, this year, is July inside of July.” – Rick Bass There are plenty of international celebrations and days of remembrance taking place over the weekend, though seemingly none that speak directly to the literary world – so, purely for the fun of it, I thought I would share a few happenings here. Should you find yourself dwelling on what might have been, you may…
Reviews for Clown Town (the ninth installment of Mick Herron’s Slough House espionage series) are generally very positive. Critics and readers praise the signature cynical wit, sharp dialogue, and dark humor. However, some reviews note that the pacing feels slow until a dramatic climax, and the series’ familiar formulas are starting to show their age. An AI review. Prior post. I can’t believe that was 3 years ago. Slow Horses and the Dark Psychology of an Unwinnable Game I mentioned Slough…
Captain Harry Phillips, a British officer, is a prisoner of war in a German-controlled hospital in Romania. It’s 1918 and while Germany has gone from near-victory to an unsuccessful Spring Offensive on the Western Front leading to eventual defeat, its army and military intelligence are still feared. Harry is recovering from being shot in the thigh but has been treated well, so is not worried when he is summoned to meet with the German officer in charge of the hospital, Captain Carlsen.Captain…
Most serious readers, I suspect, have enthusiasms they recognize as virtually indefensible. It would never occur to me, for instance, to mount a solemn defense of Charles Montagu Doughty, author of Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888), or urge readers to take on the book. His prose is too eccentric to attract and hold even the most patient and persevering of readers. Even I can’t stomach his poetry, though Guy Davenport urged The Dawn in Britain (1906) on me. In the same category I would put the…
Holmes: Undead #1 crowdfunded successfully earlier this year. In the issue, there’s lovely moody art as we get a quick summary of Holmes facing Moriarty at the Falls, narrated by Dr. John Watson, before we jump to modern day. Dr. Gionne Watson is being followed as she picks up a family legacy (a box of books, she thinks) and confronts her former team leader about being laid off from her job in cancer research. Her landlord, Mr. Hudson, reveals some [...]
I forgot what this post was originally about.
dynomight recently wrote an article calling for bloggers to state publicly whether and how they use AI. Here are ways I currently use AI in ways that might show up on this blog: I use AI to find papers and explain bits I don’t understand (generally vocabulary), and generally tutor me. I sometimes ask AI to find flaws in papers. I verify the flaws before citing them and don’t consider a paper flawless just because AI didn’t find anything. When I’m stuck I’ll ask AI to generate many ideas to…
Finished reading: Mythos l by Stephen Fry 📚🎧 It’s just delightful to hear Stephen Fry read this aloud.
EARL W. EMERSON – Nervous Laughter. PI Thomas Black #3. Avon, paperback original; 1st printing, January 1986. PI Thomas Black is in danger of falling in love with his client in this case, a woman whose husband is accused of killing a young girl he was sleeping with, then shooting himself. The nervous laughter in the title is hers (see page 86). Emerson has s smooth, readable writing style that starts the book off well, but the story is all on the surface. Black takes a lot of physical abuse in…
The Home Childby Liz BerryGenres: Historical Fiction, Verse Novel Pages: 128 Rating: Synopsis: 'Home's not a place, you must believe this, but one who names you and means beloved.' In 1908, Eliza Showell, twelve years old and newly orphaned, boards a ship that will carry her from the slums of the Black Country to rural Nova Scotia. She will never return to Britain or see her family again. She is a Home Child, one of thousands of British children sent to Canada to work as indentured farm…
I just finished my second book by Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility, and I must admit I’m fascinated by the author’s ability to create thrilling stories that are essentially slow-paced. This is the second book in my recent memory (Station Eleven being the other one) where seemingly easy passages provoked surprising adrenaline spikes in my body. I don’t think I remember feeling so impacted by a book in this way.The setting is quite unexpected and starts at the beginning of the 20th…
Review by Sandre the Giant Released: 31st July 2026 British doom titans The Salt Pale Collective have been pretty quiet since their stunning 2023 debut record, ‘A Body That Could Pass Through Stones and Trees’, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been busy working away on the follow up. That debut came in at number eight on our Album of the Year list 2023, and so to say that I have been waiting for this new record for a while is perhaps an understatement. Well, finally we have ‘And God Said…
In case it helps a fellow Supernote newbie out there: I bought a Lamy AL-Star EMR pen for my Supernote Manta after seeing it recommended on Reddit. I thought it’d be fun to try another pen. I opened it up, tried it out, and I immediately learned that I much prefer the fineliner-style ceramic nibs on all the pens sold directly from Supernote / Ratta. If you’re curious, you can read more about the pen differences on the Manta product page. I’m still loving the Manta, by the way. I’m logging my…
Some people believe that there are no coincidences. They connect seemingly unrelated events, conversations, and experiences, deciding that the universe or whatever higher power they believe in is trying to tell them something. I do not know if I believe that in every situation, but I might be willing to believe it this time. Over the past few weeks, I have been having conversation after conversation about home. It has come up in discussions about identity and belonging with friends and…
I’m going to start joining in with the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer. I’ve made my own image from a stock photo (credit: Anna Shvets) to avoid adding images created via generative AI to my blog. Feel free to use it too if you would like! This week’s prompt is about dual-wielding books: Do you read one book at a time, or juggle a few at once? I am quite possibly incapable of reading just one book at once! I have a tendency to get fidgety, though this happens mostly…
— I’m just going to carry on here in this sort of unconnected notes form. The times seem to call for it or at least my attention span does. — I read a poem lately that went straight to my heart:Poetry Itself Is a Kind of Sunlight by YanyiBelieve me, poetry itself is a kind of sunlightNo substance has been found anywhere in the cosmosThat can break the wings of poetry.Here’s a chance at last to meet one another,The river in Shenzhen chuckles merrilyThe sky sheds joyous tears.Though we’ve never…
This follows on from my last post which was prompted by my first sighting of a Woodpecker here at The House of Light. But on 31st October 2017 at Wild Poplars - a static caravan residing in the winter quarters of a circus - a redheaded green woodpecker graced the lawn. I automatically found myself referring to Woodpecker as 'he'... That 'he' was a 'he'? No idea... But the pronoun usage was noticed, and gave rise to the poetical below. I saw, not for the first time, that pronouns are largely…
Scorching days seem to be a feature of the summer now, but there are still lots of jobs to do at the Fromebridge Reserve with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. The species rich grassland contains a couple of fenced of pens with various heritage fruit trees. This means they cannot be grazed and so today’s task was to scythe and remove the nutrient. There’s not any particularly important species in the pen, so the arisings could be disposed of in the adjoining hedgerow rather than spread as green…
lingthusiasm:ALTALTALTALTALTHere are two shapes. If you had to assign the name “bouba” to one of them and “kiki” to the other, which name would you give to which? If you think about it, you probably have a guess… In this Lingthusiasm zine, Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about these two linguistically famous shapes.Print and fold your own copies for free! 8½ x 11 paper: colour, b&w A4 paper: colour, b&w Learn more about bouba and kiki! What words sound spiky across languages? (Lingthusiasm…
Read the full post at - Why read novels? via Dynomight Love this -> https://dynomight.net/novels/ I like the Socratic questioning of a generally unquestioned “good” thing. But really, why read novels? I’m partial to Theory 4, Theory 7, and Theory 8. Theory 4: Legible mind-space Maybe novels are just another form of entertainment. OK. But say you tried to tell the same story as a novel or as movie / podcast / opera / interpretive dance performance. Different formats will be better in different…
Greetings fellow readers! I'm back with another curated list of new and upcoming classic film books. This list has everything from memoirs from the biggest celebrity names, lots of biographies, genre books, deep dives on individual films and plenty from the BFI and Turner Classic Movies. Of course you'll also find your usual offerings about Alfred Hitchcock, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and other enduring legends. Publication dates range from JULY 2026 to DECEMBER 2026 and these are subject…
