Proust and the Squid: Book Review
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, London: Icon 2008. It is a great title! In the end, though, I decided the title applied — lightly — to just...
Category: reading
Reading Genesis: book review
Marilynne Robinson, Reading Genesis, London: Virago, 2024. Can the writer of this very closely-argued, scholarly study be the same Marilynne Robinson we’ve some to know and, at least in my own case, to profoundly...
Mild Vertigo: Book Review
Mieko Kanai: Mild Vertigo (translator, Polly Barton), London: Fitzarraldo, 2023. I found many reasons to admire it. Prime among them was the consistency of language — and translation — that makes it possible for...
Tired Clichés and Fine Familiar Phrases
A few weeks ago LinkedIn invited me to contribute to some teaching materials for writers. The subject was avoiding clichés. As usual, I found myself objecting: it’s true that a badly-placed cliché can stop...
Tintagel in Late Antiquity
Tintagel in Late Antiquity was a conference, held in Truro, Cornwall, April 21-23. Although I am pretty much an outsider, both to archeology and to Cornwall (a transplanted American!) I’m really glad I went...
Games and Play
On New Year’s Eve, the postman delivered a copy of a new book from Bloomsbury, Understanding Flusser, Understanding Modernism. It contains my essay, “Games and Play: Being Human in the Universe of Technical Images”. ...