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A computer cannot replicate swirling arabesques of midnight blue ink on thick white paper. Do you still write letters? If so, you’re in the tiny minority of people who do so. I’m an inveterate letter-writer. Although I enjoy online writing, it’s a convenience filled with codes and technicalities, not a relaxing affirmation of elegance. There’s nothing [...] The next gruesome Harvey Comics reprint – with a foreword by my good self – appears in a stonkingly smart slipcased edition (and there’s a regular edition) from PS Publishing. These are hilariously dark collections of true that are trashier than EC Comics but a lot of fun. While EC explored the dark desires of the [...] Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ and ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, ‘The Lottery’. Her work continues to be a major influence on writers of every kind of fiction, from the [...] Finally, a film to get excited about! As usual the summer cinemas will be awash in the amiable biff-bang-codswallop of superhero movies and and talking animal flicks for the attention-challenged, so when I saw this poster my dark heart leapt. Brad Anderson is one of my favourite directors. Let’s forgive him the misstep of ‘Vanishing On [...] I’ve always been mystified by the fact that the ‘Andy Capp’ comic strip runs in US newspapers. It was never funny in the Daily Mirror, and belongs to a weird postwar image of England’s past in a particular part of the country (the North), with rent collectors and whippet racing and pigeons – but few [...] A new occasional series about the things I find down the backs of my bookshelves. We have a ridiculously minimalist home but there are still oddities tucked away and forgotten about behind the books. I have no recollection of where this came from. It’s one of the oldest books I own, an English dictionary from [...] I’ve just received the British cover art for ‘Bryant & May and the Invisible Code’ and it’s sensational. The artist, David Frankland, just goes from strength to strength. I’m also in the middle of a quadruple edit – my most complex ever. First I’m doing the US edit, then tackling the UK notes, then I [...] Everyone’s history of reading is personal. As the unnamed teenager who was asked about the history of London said; ‘It started with me. It ends with me.’ In other words, we can only see it from our perspective. Here’s mine; There was a time when literature was a hobby for those with an education, something with [...] There’s a shocking moment in the play ‘Assassins’ when a crazy woman gets a gun out of her handbag and fires it into the audience. Most of us have never seen a gun before, let alone had one pointed at us, so the gesture is unnerving. Every generation has its great books, its key theatre and best films. Theatre is chosen on merit and performance as well as popularity (witness the huge success of ‘Jerusalem’), films have money thrown at them by studios and some stick (so that a film as godawful as ‘This Means War’ can still do respectable business) [...] |
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