It is all in the mind

I finished reading Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook (1994) a few days back. The book now rests on my desk, with many of its pages dog-eared and multiple lines of text underlined in different colours. (When I want to mark a portion of text that has had a significant impact on me, I grab the...

A non-spoiler book review: The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri is a book worth your time; if you have time to spare. It is a story of love and loss spanning six decades but expertly wrapped up in 340 pages. What else, but pithy prose, can you expect from an author with the prowess that received a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...

Dan Brown’s Inferno must burn

...Or be sent to Recycling - depending on how green you are. I paid for it and read it a while back. I seem to have a knack for paying for bad books. And oh boy! Do I pay! It's always easier to rant about a bad book soon after you have read it. I...

Can’t sing but can read

The friendly editors at The Daily Post had prompted us (WordPressers at large) to write about/construct a soundtrack to our life a couple of days ago. It didn't inspire me then to write anything 'meaningful' or 'transcendent' even in the mildest sense of these words and the end result can be found here. It did however get...

I thank the Universe for Stephen Fry

Here are my favourite bits and bobs from Stephen Fry's brilliant autobiography of his young years - Moab is my Washpot. A few years old now but timeless in its relevance. It's funny, acute, sad and charming. He's brutal when he sits in his own judgment and paints the world of teenage angst with such honesty that...

Reading to write

Dear Void I am starting off. Yes, it IS time. I will not dwell on why it has taken this long. That self-psychoanalysis is reserved for another day – one where I am feeling more introspective and self-destructive. Rather, let me tell you what got me started now. I needed to kill the miming bird....