A short story of our times: I’m finding almost as many relevant research books for my new book in the Oxfam store (in Hampstead) as in the Waterstones opposite; and most certainly the (material) university library – which is good for Milton and Publishing History, and perhaps Orwell. Today I bought books on contemporary economics, [...]

Just been given a new copy of this. The “family” edition is far too rare to ever be seen in a kitchen. Thought perhaps I’d post a few recipe reviews once I’ve got going. Are there any other good spy/cookbook crossovers I wonder?

His head was a large pounding tub of phrases, Whence men would pick delites as boys pick daisies… Admired learning took his heads possession, And turned his wit a wandering in progression The poet, John Taylor, no fan, on Thomas Coryat, traveller, writer and wit: 1611. Next weekend my shameful inactivity on the Nomad should [...]

Michael Dibdin, far too young.

The story has been running for a week of so in public, and for a while longer behind closed library doors. Some of Britain’s big writerly names, and Michael Palin, have started the fight-back rumble, but there’s not enough momentum yet. Nomad readers: help. The bottom line still looks like very bad news for research; [...]

St Margaret’s Bay, Jan 2007

Have I missed something here? Some anglo-American humour thing (humor thing)? Nestler’s application for a restraining order was accompanied by a six-page typed letter in which she said Letterman used code words, gestures and “eye expressions” to convey his desires for her. She wrote that she began sending Letterman “thoughts of love” after his “Late [...]

Coming home after a long period away is a strange phenomenon at any time; coming home after wandering for several years in an Eastern Europe heavy with growing pains particularly so. To discover that the streets of one’s parents are now filled with people freed by membership of the expanded European Union to speak the [...]

I know this is dull, but after reading and viewing and then reading and viewing some more, I still don’t get it. The centre piece of the Spring MI:3 – X-Men 3 blockbuster triptych thing, the second largest first-weekend take in cinema history; the twenty-first century publishing phenomenon, a page-turner, a multi-faced mystery, a picaresque [...]

Lots of folk live on their wits: Lecturers, lispers, Losels, loblolly-men, louts – They don’t end up as paupers Toads Philip Larkin There are the Renaissance Madonna Readers and there are the Contemporary Sight-Line Readers. And within this fine distinction lies a visible secret of working in the British Library, and a small and high, [...]

“It would be like people saying Versace was a better designer than Armani because there’s so much more design on display. (Of course, I’m biased because I come more from the Armani school – I want an expert to be able to see how well I put this suit together, I want everyone else to [...]

Can anyone help me? I need stories about libraries. Ideally the British Library (and I know Jenny D has covered this area) but others will do – I guess. Personal stories, famous stories, funny or sad. What you like. And could you email them or any links to me: my address is in my profile [...]

I lived in Hungary for over two years and never once visited the town of Sopron, close to the Austrian border. It was one of those towns I probably went by on a motorway leaving Budapest at some time; one of those places local students were from that I’d meet at a outdoor bar in [...]

Always loved this magazine for its balance of information, prose and eclectic mix. And it tells you about strange places never found in newspapers. Like Belgium. Or Brazil. This week there’s a good piece about novels, politics and truth always being so much stranger than fiction. FOR years, Tom Wolfe has been lambasting America’s literary [...]