And don't believe the cover - it was not a potboiler. The gold embossing was wasted. Would love to find a book that really did bring this extraordinary era to life. If you know of one please pass it on!
I think it was meant to be the end of the Roman Republic in thriller format. It just wasn't thrilling. The characters never really came alive and the plot was insufficiently varied to keep you engaged. My advice - don't bother.
Cover of Dictator by Robert Harris.
4. Dictator by Robert Harris. The 3rd book in a trilogy of which I'd only read the first (trust me, that didn't matter). Oh dear - this book outstayed it's welcome. I felt it would never end. The events were extraordinary, real end of an era stuff, but the prose laid them flat.
Sorry I'll miss it - on holiday for 3 weeks
I recalled a mid-level politician with a culture brief who'd been an artist, once telling me that even if you became prime minister, if you'd been to art school you'd still be a failed artist in your own mind.
The rest of the plot strained credulity except for the part where our hero tried to decide whether he was still doing the art project of getting lost that he started 25 years before.
The best parts of the book were the memories of art school and the art scene in the 1990s. It took me right back to too many private views in tiny sweaty squatted galleries and too many nights in pubs being bored by artists who are now famous but certainly weren't then.
Cover of Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru
3. Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru. The story of an artist who wasn't sure if he was still an artist or just a sick delivery driver picking his way through the mire of the Covid-19 pandemic with a case of long covid exacerbated by bad memories.
I also struggled with the cover which is based on what is probably a wonderful photo by Charlie Waite of the Cuckmere River in East Sussex transformed by heavy handed colourisation into a poor vector illustration. Bad chioce.
It made me think about the pressures of commercial publishing where place writing is not enough, it has to be combined with something searing that makes you feel like your life is better than that. Unfair on writers and places.
I wanted to know more about the flat places and less about the trauma. The descriptions of East Anglia and Orkney really rang true but I wanted more depth about them. The trauma rang true too but I wanted less.
Cover of hardback edition of A Flat Place by Noreen Masud.
2. A Flat Place by Noreen Masud. Luminous writing about flat places combined with trauma memoir. Hhmm. I'm not sure I wanted them together.
Heartrending and terrifying at the same time. The specificness of the places Balle describes means that the actually improbable situation feels real. I will ration the subsequent books to prolong the reading experience. What a great start to a year's reading.
Cover of On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Ballet.
1. On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle. A sublime story of losing it and coming to terms with the loss. As I read it I found myself back in the world of caring for someone with dementia and how the person you live gets chipped away.
Whole books I've read this year: mostly fiction and poetry with the odd memoir. Doesn't include the chapters and papers I read for my PhD.
Norden's map of Middlesex 1593
10. And I learnt about chorography - describing places in words and maps. Here's the first English one from 1593 by John Norden of Middlesex, the first map with roads and descriptions. Courtesy @senatehouselib.bsky.social.
9. I've spent the week learning how historians use maps with @ihr.bsky.social with layers of maps to tell stories over time. The challenge is literally to find the places to pin the layers so the story is accurate. And if you get it wrong the map warps - what potential!
Out wonderful event at @senatehouselib.bsky.social on Tuesday.
A map on a blue background.
Today at Senate House Library I'll be part of a Royal Holloway Poetics Research Centre take over from 5-7pm in the Durning-Lawrence Room, showing and reading from my new work Delineations.Tickets: www.london.ac.uk/senate-house...
Including my new project Delineations!
Today! Reading from Delineations at 1pm, artwork from it on display all day. Landmark Arts Centre Teddington. 11-5.
I'm on Spotify! That's a first. Thanks @brihughespoet.bsky.social
Brilliant book. Love it.
It was great. Thanks @brihughespoet.bsky.social
And I'm be showing my new work, Delineations.
Come! Hear the banks of the Thames as you've never heard them before.
I'm shortlisted for the Wasafiri prize for one of my favourite projects, Songs of a Menoflân! Exploring what happens under the middle aged cloak of invisibility all women have and how it can make you into an avant-garde flâneuse.
Come with me to the empty banks of the Thames when it runs through the parts of the city you didn't know were there!
IN THE BLOOD out today from @ghostcitypress.bsky.social. Download at ghostcitypress.com/2025-summer-...
Coming on Monday ghostcitypress.com/2025-summer-...
