Another writer strutting and fretting: living in Scotland
“When you steal from the library, you are preventing anyone else from reading that book, and the very notion makes me want to drop you in the Void.” Piers Anthony Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been, oh, a week since my last confession. The sin's the same, which should make …
The familiarity gained from last year's three-month stay in Scotland's shortened the re-acquaintance process with life here. It already feels familiar walking to the market to pick up simple things like milk and bread. There's a small shop, a mini-mart we'd call it in the States, five minutes away. The nearest supermarket's further than …
Thanks to all who've sent notes asking if I'm still alive. Sorry I wasn't able to reply to all, but I'm popping in to reassure you I haven't yet left this earthly plane. For some of you, hopefully that's what you'd hoped to hear. For the rest of you, I know lots of …
I had faith March wouldn't let me down, unlike my crappy January and February. Lie: I had no such faith, but told myself things could hardly go further south. And there were no Olympics, no television distracting me. The TV reverted to its usual function: background noise for napping and covering the surface of my …
Continue reading March in Review: Much more reading, many more books. That’s more like it.
Screw April; February is the real Cruelest Month February heard me telling it to sod off. It's only the 10th, and it's already wiped the floor with my pasty arse. Hell, so far all of 2018 hates my guts. Yes, I said I wanted an exciting year. But my definition of "exciting" is …
Continue reading Early February check in: Spark & Shelley & Bowie (and abject misery)
Re-building my library is a whore's paradise, I ain't gonna lie. But it's also terribly sad. Why? As I search the shelves of bookshops I see titles I used to own, but can't afford to buy back. It would cost a fortune. Visions of grabbing a couple dozen of them, running out the door …
After a long stretch of feeling pretty okay, insomnia and that black dog depression reared their ugly heads once again. The all too familiar slide began before Christmas. I thought once the holidays passed I'd bounce back; a couple weeks later, I realized that wasn't going to happen without intervention. You can't be …
Books mentioned in this post: Muriel Spark - The Comforters Muriel Spark - Robinson Muriel Spark - Memento Mori AJ Finn - The Woman in the Window Peter Manseau - The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost Michael Wolff - Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White …
Continue reading My generally crappy week in review: reading and other complaints
Let's face it: no one knows which books I want at the holidays. Used to be I owned thousands and no one could tell what I didn't already have. Now that my library's so small, it's what haven't you already read... Plus, I only exchange gifts with my kids, so there's that. They figure I …
Continue reading Merry Booksmas! Books I’m gifting to me this year.
I miss the good old days when I had me a rich husband to pay for my subscription to the Sunday New York Times. There's nothing on earth like a thick slab of newsprint slamming onto your driveway once a week, leaving a rectangle-shaped imprint in the asphalt. Even once I peeled off the sections …
