Blue Pencils

There’s been something of a resurgence of rock music narratives of late. Taylor Jenkin Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six has perhaps been the most visible recent example but in fiction, we’ve also had David Mitchell’s Utopia Street and on TV we’ve had Danny Boyle’s The Pistols and Sam Levison’s The Idols, among others. All…Read more

TS Eliot: After the Wasteland by Robert Crawford THIS IS big book. In fact, taken with its first volume, Robert Crawford could be said to have produced the definitive biography of TS Eliot. And it’s one that’s sorely needed. If there’s one literary figure of the 20th century in need of some re-evaluation then it’s…Read more

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan Jennifer Egan’s 2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad is rightly considered one of the key novels of the post-millennium period. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that it touched the zeitgeist of the time, particularly in terms of discussion about how the internet, and digital technology in…Read more

How High We Go In The Dark by Sequioa Nagamatsu There seem to be two dominant schools of thought as to how the Covid pandemic is going to affect literature, from an artistic rather than an economic point of view. Will readers want to avoid anything disease and pandemic-related, opting instead for escapism from the…Read more

This week The Guardian ran an interview with author and stand-up comedian Mitch Benn, one which I thought raised some interesting questions. On the surface, the interview might almost be described as ‘inspiring’, a tale of lucky breaks and careers kickstarted by happenstance as Benn recounts landing a book deal for his comedy-SF novel via…Read more