Bernard O'Keeffe Whenever I’m asked where my ideas come from I usually shrug and say I have no idea, trying to give the impression that whatever I write is the result of some mysterious Muse-inspired connection with my subconscious, far too complex to be explained with the crude tools of language. This is, of course, not the … Read more
I read ‘A Theatre for Dreamers’ in a couple of sittings, becoming so immersed in its sense of place and time that I almost forgot about the current state of the world. It may have helped that the novel is set in Hydra, a place to which I feel a strong emotional connection, and … Read more
Having read Lucy Mangan’s five star review in The Guardian – https://bit.ly/2lDUV58 I went into my viewing of Nick Hornby’s State of the Union determined to follow her advice not to binge it all in one sitting. I failed. Ten ten-minute dramas. I wolfed the whole lot down. Short-form comedy, I’m sure, is not meant to … Read more
Where did the idea for 10 Things To Do Before You Leave School come from? I’m fascinated by lists. We all make them – from shopping lists and mundane daily to-do lists to more ambitious ones to do with hopes and aspirations. One of the Lists people like to make is ‘The Bucket … Read more
Like many others who listen to him each day on BBC Radio London (and those currently listening will appreciate what a fantastic job he’s doing), I feel I know Robert Elms well. In my case this sense of connection is strengthened by the fact that we ‘re both the same age … Read more
On the second page of Sally Rooney’s universally acclaimed, Booker- longlisted novel is the following paragraph: ‘He puts his hands in his pockets and suppresses an irritable sigh, but suppresses it with an audible intake of breath, so that it still sounds like a sigh.’ What? I get the hand in the pockets bit, but … Read more
WARNING: contains spoilers As soon as you reach the end of Roddy Doyle’s extraordinary novel, ‘Smile’, you’re tempted to go back and read it straight through again to work out whether you should have anticipated the narrative trick Doyle has just pulled and whether or not the whole thing actually works. I have done just … Read more
Frank’s Last Invigilation When anyone asked Frank whether he was counting the days to retirement he would answer not with a smile or a yes but with a number. No countdown had ever excited him more and each morning he gleefully crossed another day off the list he kept in his diary. It … Read more
Given the revived interest in Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ (sales of the novel have increased dramatically since Trump’s election and a USA TV adaptation is to be screened by Channel 4 in the UK), I found it interesting to look back at something I wrote in 1993 about teaching it. An Approach To The … Read more
The Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education is look-away explicit in its treatment of sex. In fact, before I acclimatised to its no-holds barred, let-it-all-hang-out approach I spent many of the early episodes watching the screen through eye-shielding hands, tempted on occasions to hide behind the sofa as if I was a kid again hearing … Read more
Elena Ferrante, I apologise. Last summer I read the first of your Neapolitan Novels, ‘My Brilliant Friend’ and I was underwhelmed. I wrote about it in a round-up of my summer reading. I am not usually worried by being out of sync with majority opinion but In your case something was nagging at me, so … Read more
It is easy, and tempting, to see the eighty-two-year-old Leonard Cohen’s magnificent fourteenth album as a farewell. As is often the case with Cohen, though, it is not quite that simple. ‘You Want It Darker’ may seem to be the singer’s farewell to his life, his work, to us, but throughout the album the nature … Read more