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He was and yet married to a devoted wife.

I don’t suppose many on here like Bruce Chatwin - I do - but I always remember this about him (so does my wife when I occasionally forget to put my plate in the dishwasher “you’re not Bruce Chatwin!”) “Chatwin's vanity, petulance, occasional cruelty and selfishness are unflinchingly documented...

The Hogarth at Tate Mod is very good. Has all the usual paintings you’d expect but also places him in an historical context - what’s going on in Paris, Amsterdam etc and how he’s influenced by, and influences, these Europeans, rather than this cliché parochial English painter. There are two...

I finished a re-read of Hard Times yesterday and enjoyed it much more than I had previously. There’s a obviously great fun in satirising the utilitarian views and the usual array of well made characters but I think because it’s short he’s focusing on just one main plot rather than the plate...

I have marked more acrostics than anyone living. They’re all shit

I’ve read most of these but am thinking that a proper systematic re-read might well be my next project (once I’ve finished my current project)

i'll go and look it up - i just remember @luka teasing you about how long it was taking you to write

After rr-reading Morretti’s Atlas of the European Novel, I have started Old Goriot. Already hooked, not quite Lost Illusions brilliant but certainly feel like I’m in the hands of a master. @craner weren’t you going to do something on him? Also got the Tin Drum on the go, somehow I’ve managed to...

Trying to blame Labour for Saville in the middle of his so called apology was odd and rather tin eared.

Lovely one for @WashYourHands

I’ll check it out this weekend

Good to see this thread. I think he’s not only one of the funniest writers around, he’s also one of the most interesting - the only thing like him I’ve come across is the Sellout. Sidney Poitier is a pretty good entry into his work but I think both Erasure and Percival Everett by Virgil Russell...

Not for everyone but Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant pretty much define classic movie

I do a lot of work with teachers and students on memory - it’s probably the biggest change in teacher training in recent years, an u derstanding of metacognition. Memory is the residue of thought is the mantra, so anything we can do to strengthen memory gives kids more chance of learning of more...

Thank you! For a man who has just cheated death you looked pretty spry.

I think it sounds like you’re talking about this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindness_(novel)

I usually have a re-read on the go pretty much all the time. Just finished third go through of Danc to the Music of Time. Currently on fourth read of The Good Soldier. I’ve read Great Expectations probably a dozen times. Gatsby probably more than that. Moby Dick, David Copperfield, Bleak House...

Re-reading The Good Soldier - I live the slow reveal as layer after layer is stripped away to reveal the vileness beneath the veneer of respectability- it’s like an act of literary archeology. Second volume of Musil’s Man Without Qualities - epic MittelEuropa classic set in Austria just before...

I loved the way he turns the effect of a magnet on iron filings into the rose in the steel dust. He uses it a few more times later on, along with the crystal and the fountain.

I thought I had it this week - awful on the night of 2nd into 3rd Jan. Self isolated only for my test result to go astray in the system. Finally found out today I didn’t have it. Four days isolation, for nothing.