My #reading April 2016

Every day I work on the edit of my book. I slog away, shifting chunks of material and moving them back, eating my salad in a daze, wondering if the linking passages I’ve written are leading me up a garden path, or are sentimental, or violate some unarticulated moral and technical code I’ve signed up […]

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My #reading: March 2016

“Academic writing was actually about hiding what you didn’t know. There was a language, a technique, and I had mastered it. In everything there were gaps which language could cover over as long as you had acquired the know-how. I had, for instance, never read Adorno, knew practically nothing about the Frankfurt School, just the […]

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Some reflective thoughts about social reading…

We read to know we are not alone.   SOURCE I have recently purchased a new Kindle e-reader. You can click on that last link and read the specs but in short it has “Amazon’s 6″ Paperwhite display technology with E Ink Carta™ and built-in light, 300 ppi, optimised font technology, 16-level gray scale“. It is […]

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My #reading: February 2016

“We are creatures made as much by art as by experience and what we read in books is the sum of both.”  Andy Miller “I wanted to possess all the books I had already read, as well as all those I had not – every book in the whole wide world, in other words.”  Andy Miller  Filmish: […]

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December 2015: My Reading

“There are two motives for reading a book: One, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.” Bertrand Russell I had the goal of writing a blog post each month this year and feel quietly pleased at keeping up the pace. I have made notes and lists, in all kinds of […]

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November 2015: My Reading

  This month I have made a conscious effort to finish a number of half-read books and finally investigate some that have been on my “to read” lists for years. Fiction Shaun Tan is another Western Australian who produces highly original, inspired words and images. Several of his books are truly wonderful. I have spent […]

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September-October 2015: My Reading

But only literature can put you in touch with another human spirit, as a whole, with all its weaknesses and grandeurs, its limitations, its pettinesses, its obsessions, its beliefs; with whatever it finds moving, interesting, exciting or repugnant. Only literature can give you access to a spirit from beyond the grave – a more direct, […]

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August 2015: My Reading

The gull sees farthest who flies highest. Richard Bach As citizens of a free society, we have a duty to look critically at our world. But if we think we know what is wrong, we must act upon that knowledge. Tony Judt   I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at […]

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July 2015: My Reading

Two weeks of holidays certainly provided time for more books this month than last. I continue to enjoy the pleasures of rereading and science fiction, as well as some light but thoughtful travel books and tomes exploring historical wisdom on how to live – and win elections! High Possibility Classrooms Dr Jane Hunter has written a […]

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June 2015: My Reading

“…by writing about himself, Knausgaard has really written about them, that reading ‘My Struggle’ is like opening someone else’s diary and finding your own secrets.”                                                             […]

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May 2015: My Reading

Certain books, though, like certain landscapes, stay with us even when we have left them, changing not just our weathers but our climates. Robert MacFarlane This is certainly true of Robert MacFarlane’s books. He is a perfect writer for me. His obsessions with authors, walking, literature, language, nature and landscape are just thrilling. That saying about reading […]

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April 2015: My Reading

Italy A full two weeks of the April were spent in Italy – most of the trip was spent in Perugia, a town located in Umbria before having a few nights in Rome – and I tried to read appropriately for (and during) the experience. River of Shadows by Valerio Varesi is not my usual genre, […]

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March 2015: My Reading

“Science fiction is a literature that belongs to all humankind.”  Liu Cixin March has been an exciting month of science fiction reading and some progress has been made finding novelists writing in languages other than English. The trick, of course, is to be lucky enough to find novels superbly rendered by their translators. A tip from […]

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February 2015: My Reading

There’s been a good variety of books completed this month including graphic novels, historical fiction, essays, memoirs, biographies, contemporary fiction, revolutionary pamphlets and plenty of history. Christopher Hitchens and Thomas Paine Last month I consumed oodles of Orwell and re-read Hitchens’ evaluation of the author’s importance to contemporary literature and journalism. This has led to re-discovering […]

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January 2015: My Reading

It is not a New Year’s resolution but I intend to write one blog post a month about what I’ve been reading. Usually I write a roundup of books enjoyed twice a year but these posts do not tend to say much in the sense of being reviews. They are more lists with a few […]

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Charging Windmills: My Reading in 2014

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” George R.R. Martin “I wanted to crawl in between those black lines of print, the way you crawl through a fence, and go to sleep under that beautiful big green fig-tree.” Sylvia Plath “I don’t remember ever […]

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Reading for pleasure?

Twice a year at this blog I reflect on books read. While drafting that soon to be published post, I started thinking about how children become avid readers and how significant adults in their lives assist construction of this identity. I suspect that peers play a large part in this process but the ground must […]

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Reading (so far) in 2014

“An entire life spent reading would have fulfilled my every desire; I already knew that at the age of seven. The texture of the world is painful, inadequate; unalterable, or so it seems to me. Really, I believe that an entire life spent reading would have suited me best.”     Michel Houellebecq “I sink down […]

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My Reading in 2013: Favourite Books

He didn’t want a television, he had no need of a radio. He didn’t want the world to come in….He couldn’t stand the false hysteria of soap operas, the forced hilarity of sitcoms, the feigned outrage of commentators and the hosts of current-affairs shows. He didn’t own a computer. He didn’t need its temptations. He […]

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Social Reading: Fad or Future?

Reading has always been a solitary pursuit – by definition – in my mind. I never sought membership of any kind of club or group that met to discuss books, other than being an English teacher spending my days in classroom conversation about reading, writing and literature. The idea of attending a ‘festival’ to listen […]

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Social Reading

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore Reading has always been a solitary pursuit – by definition – in my mind. I never sought membership of any kind of club that met to discuss books. The idea of attending a ‘festival’ to listen to an author, or ask them […]

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Summer Holiday Reading

Because in my memory of childhood there is always the smell of bubbling tar, of Pinke Zinke, the briny smell of the sea. It is always summer and I am on Scarborough Beach, blinded by light, with my shirt off and my back a map of dried salt and peeling sunburn. There are waves cracking […]

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Photography: My Reading

The shutterbug is feeding voraciously on my blood. I am happily bitten and wanted to share the best of what I have read on my Kindle or iPad, from local libraries, inter-library loans or friends’ shelves. Amazon has made a fine profit from me as it is so easy to cheaply and quickly purchase for my kindle […]

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Reading…

I can still see the poster on my own childhood primary school classroom wall: Kids who read succeeed The Conservative politician and current British Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, has recently said that, ‘children should read 50 books a year’. Who could possibly disagree? In my (not so) humble (on this issue) opinion […]

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