When planning these posts, my aim was not to comment on writing techniques I’d learned from books, but things: ideas, ways of living, ways of being. So it’s really time to mention the book responsible for a major change in my teens: Whale Nation. This was the late 80s. Environmentalism was popping up a bit …
Category archives: Reading
Scooby-Doo Annual: trapping scary stuff inside books
There’s a certain annual we own that has been doctored. One of the comic strip stories was deemed too scary to be found unexpectedly – I think it was one illustration in particular. Solution: trap the story so it can’t come out. Now some people find Scooby Doo too much to begin with, and others …
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The Lady of Shalott: writing and handwriting
Some writing stays with you – but sometimes for less typical reasons. Did you ever sit and write things out for the sake of writing things out? For whatever reason, the poem I copied out, over and over, was the first verse of The Lady of Shalott: ‘On either side the river lie Long fields …
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In the Night Kitchen: food containers as icons
It’s January, and my own kitchen is getting a bit of a blitz. A couple of the cupboards have see-through doors, and at times I rearrange the contents, looking for a pleasing combination. It is the power of food containers as icons. In the Night Kitchen is one of my favourite books. By Maurice Sendak, …
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The Hobbit: the satisfaction of a well-formed universe
It could have been one of many things. I guess that you could call the Hundred Acre Wood a well-formed universe: after all, it has maps, hums to hum when walking through, and so on. But The Hobbit understandably stood out when I was little. Not one map but many. Not just hums, but developed …
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