Reading Alexandra Harris’s curious book on Romantic Moderns, I came upon a chapter describing the attitude of high modernist architects…
The Great Detective
I am slowly working my way through the complete Sherlock Holmes stories, something I haven’t done for a few years.…
Paddy
Patrick Leigh Fermor is dead. Another great writer I now will never meet. He was 96, a grand age, but…
On St George’s Hill
I have finally had the opportunity to watch Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s 1975 film Winstanley, something I have wanted…
Joanna Russ, 1937-2011
Joanna Russ died yesterday. She wasn’t important, she was essential! I couldn’t write much about her here, I never met…
About Awards
It’s the awards season (honestly, I hadn’t noticed), so it is also, and inevitably, the season for debates about awards.…
BSFA Non Fiction Award
Apparently, I won. I’m not sure I believe this, but … where is that champagne.
Life and silence
As I write this, I am half way through a review. I have been half way through the review for…
The Other Culture
In my other life, I am constantly being told that Jazz and Science don’t sell, that if you put either…
Imagining an interview with Manuel Puig upon reading Betrayed By Rita Hayworth
– Manuel Puig, thank you for agreeing to talk to me. – – Of course. What I do want to…