Tag: Books
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Greetings from the edge, I’ve spent the weekend slowly melting into a puddle while wearing an offensively loud shirt. Friday’s post pulled in a lot of eyeballs and, on the strength of that, I return bearing Part 2 of my smash-and-grab raid into Austin Kleon’s masterclass in creative larceny: Steal Like an Artist. Here are…
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Greetings from the edge, Austin Kleon has made a pretty decent living out of encouraging not so much art theft as a kind of creative burglary spree, where we steal a little from Star Wars, a little from Battlestar Galactica and a pinch of Criminal Minds, throw them into a blender and make delicious cookies…
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Greetings from the edge, I’m a bibliophile. A die-hard, hardback, leatherbound devotee of the written word. I like books of all shapes and sizes and read across a wide range of genres, although I am yet to venture into family sagas. One day perhaps. When the Kindle first appeared, I carried that sleek little slab…
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Greetings from the edge, Things have been busy here in the broom cupboard. Between the blog, the short fiction, the articles, my computer repair work, the library, and trying to hammer my D&D setting into a professional-looking PDF, I have had very little time for anything else. So I have decided to, rather than just…
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Greetings from the edge. I finished The Word for World Is Forest, and I have to say, it is the most anti-colonial and specifically anti-Vietnam War book I have ever read. It is one of the most openly political things Ursula K. Le Guin ever wrote. Not quite fat enough to qualify as a novel,…
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Greetings from the edge, Yesterday, I began a gentle critique of 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson, picking apart a handful of ideas that sound solid on the surface but wobble when you lean on them. Today, we’re heading back into the lobster pot to deal with the remaining six rules, and to see…
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Greetings from the edge, I make no secret of the fact that I’ve been wrestling with my mental health for a while now. For further reading, see… well, anything I’ve written. At my lowest ebb, a few years ago, I picked up 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson. I can safely say it changed…
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Greetings from the edge, It strikes me, dear reader, that I have been exceptionally lucky when it comes to books. I have never read a truly awful one. I’m not just saying that as a mediocre writer trying to defend his brethren, although I am doing that as well. I think every single thing ever…
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Greetings from the edge, Deep into On Writing right now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thoroughly enjoying The Three-Body Problem, which insistently is not about the problems that arise from needing to dispose of three cadavers, and I’m also really enjoying the alien-eye view of human jingoism and bloodthirsty expansionism in The Word for World…