On writing letters
The wryness of Kenneth Grahame’s Dream Days is captured here in describing the cultural activity of choice for his younger...
‘Write,’ he said
A fine parting injunction to a friend you are seeing off at the train station. Julián did as he was...
Relief of the gods
A gratitude, therefore, that the whole race or culture has not been wiped out even if the city has been...
High-perched asylum
In his acknowledgements, Leigh Fermor thanks a number of people for 'kindness and haven during restless literary displacements', and it...
The secret of surprise
A pithy tip from one of the masters, succinctly conveyed in Clive James' translation. It's certainly given me food for...
Over-wrought fretwork
A damning description of Victorian writing, contrasted with the delicious sizzle and flavour of 'fat-bacon language'.
'After the fat-bacon language...
This I do not know
One of the best books I read last year is The Russian Journal of John Steinbeck. He spent a month...
Missing homework
Here Steinbeck suffers a bout of exam nerves before being bombarded with highly intellectual questions from his counterparts in the...
Shaping words and forming letters
It’s unusual to read such a detailed comment on the act of writing by hand. But once you have the...
Futility worth reading about
I like the idea that something about futility is written so splendidly that it’s worth reading before you give up...
Writing on wheels
Another in a series of accounts by John Steinbeck's wife, Elaine, of his perpetual search for the perfect writing space....
A page per year
Taleb is an erudite and provocative writer, sometimes coming across as intellectually arrogant, though always interesting. Here he shows a healthy...
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