Timothy Balding

Well, at least the very good ones open such worlds. But they are few and far between in our times.

For sure it's 'neurobiological'. Who could doubt that?

I stole the books with sexy bits from my father's bookshelves. He never knew. I remember taking Catch-22, which was pretty dirty, and also The Canterbury Tales (incredible sexy, but very, very difficult to understand!). This was my education (in those days, no one had the bad taste to teach sex).

Thank you kindly, Marianne!

Thanks. Yes, I knew about cows. But not humans. That was the point of my curiosity. We know a dead cow can't fart, but perhaps a human who has eaten a dead cow is also a problem.

Is this from human farting, like the cows? It's true that this is frequent after beef burgers.

First review of the Spanish edition of my novel The Impostors. 'Fervent' applause for the laughter the book brings to our desperate times, with wit, sarcasm, and philosophical brushstrokes. The human condition not criticised, but portrayed with spices of fine British humour. 'Hilarious.' In short.

That's kind of you to say so. It gives me much pleasure. Thanks! As a bonus, here's a short passage on Bach from the same novel (The hero is talking to his parrot, by the way; he's discovered that 'Yorick' loves classical music).

Why do all such questions ask about 'WIPs'? Has no one actually finished and published anything here that they can talk about?😜

Just send the file to yourself by email each day, or hour, or minute, depending on your level of paranoia (mine is high). I figure that Google will survive me, so I'm safe.

Thanks! One can say what some music endeavours to 'describe' - Smetana's Moldau, for example, or Beethoven's Pastoral symphony, are extremely evocative. Then, one can also describe what effect the music has on us, emotionally. Here's an extract from one of my novels where I endeavour to do this.

What do you mean, though? To describe music? To write prose which has its own word music? Or ...?

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown review – weapons-grade nonsense from beginning to end Code-breaking hero Robert Langdon is back for another conspiracy thriller, featuring underground laboratories and new thoughts on the nature of consciousness

Once upon a time, authors savaged each other's books, while critics shredded lousy writing. Back to the good old days with a review eviscerating Dan Brown's new novel: "weapons grade bollocks", by an "inept", "hopeless" author. Let's kill more darlings! theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown review – weapons-grade nonsense from beginning to end Code-breaking hero Robert Langdon is back for another conspiracy thriller, featuring underground laboratories and new thoughts on the nature of consciousness

Once upon a time, authors savaged each other's books, while critics shredded lousy writing. Back to the good old days with a review eviscerating Dan Brown's new novel: "weapons grade bollocks", by an "inept", "hopeless" author. Let's kill more darlings! theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

Four bestselling authors recently put their readers to the test and published their own short texts next to AI work on the same theme. A large 'blind' poll found that their readers simply couldn't tell the difference. I did the test - AI was much better written and more interesting.

😀 Definitely not to be meddled with! And you should see her zucchini.

Anybody out there? Is Bluesky a reality or an illusion? For the moment, it's a cemetery and I'm a zombie here.

YouTube video by Andy Christopher Miller The Spectator by Timothy Balding

"Great wit and erudition ... it's fun, playful and philosophical, a very enjoyable read!"
A video review of my latest novel, 'The Spectator', up today on the Youtube book channel of author Andy Miller.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ8G...

The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

The End Game - The best political analysis I've read since Hannah Arendt last crossed my desk. Do yourself a favour, get a stiff drink, sit down and read this. Brilliant and profoundly illuminating. Thank you @naomiaklein.bsky.social & @astra.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
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In today's issue of the excellent London Review of Books ... my own little act of resistance to the oncoming storm. And the Spanish peasant woman who inspired it all (photo Associated Press, if I remember rightly). The creative mind at work ... Ooh la la!

If perhaps you can find such a thing as your 'true self' 😀 In my case, it never existed. I had to invent it from scratch. I don't think I'm the only one obliged to do this, in an epoch where ways of thinking and beliefs are less and less inherited, our parents having, rightly, given up such ambition

In today's issue of the excellent London Review of Books ... my own little act of resistance to the oncoming storm. And the Spanish peasant woman who inspired it all (photo Associated Press, if I remember rightly). The creative mind at work ... Ooh la la!

It's a long time between reviews these days. Few readers make the effort. So when a new one suddenly pops up, like this evening, well, a man could weep, really 😃 'The Spectator' (tinyurl.com/3v3kfkt9)

It's a long time between reviews these days. Few readers make the effort. So when a new one suddenly pops up, like this evening, well, a man could weep, really 😃 'The Spectator' (tinyurl.com/3v3kfkt9)

Thank you kindly. Maybe indeed it's why my book sales on Amazon this past week are at nothing...

Twitter is under attack, apparently, and has been down three times today. That's why they're coming over here right now 😀

Frantic first and last. I'm one of those (there are many) who only write one draft. That may have a lot to do with the long mental preparation. Paulo Coelho, for instance, says he wrote The Alchemist only once, and in twelve days, because he'd done all the work already in his head.

My process, which is impossible for me to modify, apparently:
I simply have to wait, going about life, while my creative tank fills itself in agonising slowness with my next book's ideas. It could take a year or two. Eventually, I'm ready, and then I write rapidly to the death! Every day.

First I've heard of such a boycott. Could you tell us more?

Not revolution, but resistance. That's also satisfying.