Louie Stowell

ICYMI, @irishtimes.com decided to #GetKeshed today, with this magnificent review in miniature from Andrew Gallix, a critic and writer I have the highest regard for. Hell of a thing, this. Props to him for having the chops to review a 400 page novel within this kind of word limit too 😀

I had to look up so many words - or learn them from context...or sometimes just be satisfied with not understanding everything and not having that spoil my fun. Sometimes just the sounds of words were enjoyable.

Mad, The Beano, Victor, Wizard, The Buster Book Of Spooky Stories but, most importantly, the Coronet Peanuts books and Raymond Briggs’ Fungus The Bogeyman. All were written by men (occasionally women) who’d happily employ words like “engender” and “absolve” that I’d have to look up and learn. 1/2

To be fair to kid you, the ones in punch weren't as good as the ones in private eye.

ICE Took Wael Tarabishi's Full Time Caregiver Away... and it Killed Him Wael Tarabishi was a 30 year old disabled man who's father Maher was his full time caregiver. ICE took Maher in October, leaving Wael without support. He died three months later.

On this Disability Day of Mourning, let’s honor Wael Tarabishi, a disabled man who died when ICE took his caregiver away.

Wael told them he would die without his father who was his “arms, legs & lungs”.

ICE took him anyways.

Wael died 3 months later:

www.disabledginger.com/p/ice-took-w...

18 months after North Tyneside Council withdrew from plans to create safe cycling infrastructure and improve Preston Road, North Shields (and after 18 months of everyday aggression and risk for those on foot & bike), this happened - a driver had crossed the carriageway and through the “guard” rail.

Yes! Was a fascinating process - wrote it with two other colleagues, and interviewed various politicians at parliament (my colleague's wife worked in politics at the time so we had an in) and found out a LOT about things like voting rights.

Facts against fascism yup!

I mean I was there over 12 years, I took my time ;)

We had The Beano and Whizzer and Chips each week courtesy of my grandparents, but I also have a vivid memory of reading the 'filler' pieces in my parents' Readers Digests - Laughter is the Best Medicine and all that - while eating my breakfast. I didn't always understand, but I loved the words.

Look inside your body was hands down the hardest book I have ever written - cos it had flaps inside flaps so I was wrangling files with multiple text layers, some of it upside down, nearly broke my brain so glad it's still going! Re the politics one, the spread about voting rights took huge research

The outside was where I mostly lived as a kid in the suburbs of london. I want the outside for kids now as much as I want fun things for them to read.

A child with their face buried behind an Usborne Law for Beginners book

Ditto! Also the “Usborne [Big Topic] for Beginners” series is similarly amazing

Ahh! I worked on the politics one of that! It was a WEIRD TIME cos we were doing it during brexit/trump etc.

Readers Digest, and pretty much anything I could get my mittens on

I cannot say enough good things about the 100 Things to Know About books. They are so well designed, really engaging and incredibly accessible. They’re also perfect for kids to pick up in class for DEAR time without having to try and get back into a story.

I used to 'read' my dad's Giles annuals. Only one caption, but a whole little world in each illustration.

I only came to Misty later as an adult, it absolutely slapped!

Oh my goodness! We had Misty, Jinty, Beano, Footrot Flats (NZ) and inappropriate Robert Crumb comics our dad gave us because of course comics are for kids. Thank goodness my parents understood that reading is reading whether books or comics.

The first books I read were Oor Wullie and The Broons - so I actually learned to read Scots before I read English. While living in Hong Kong 👀

Later came The Beano, Astérix, and Tintin. I'd stay up late into the night reading and re-reading my Astérix omnibuses in particular.

"Louie read the elvish dictionary this week and had a lot of internal discussions about the differences between quenya and sindarin..."

*bullying intensifies*

Big poster saying “this month, Neill read… [ten back issues of White Dwarf magazine]”

*bullying commences*

Exactly. Like I get the thinking behind Rewards Schemes and Celebrating Achievement and stuff, but so much of what I was reading as a kid I’d have been absolutely mortified to have a teacher even know about, let alone put on like a big chart on the wall. Can you IMAGINE?

Awww happy to bring you and the phoenix together

Puffin Post! And yes, the kids' bits in the Sunday papers, the cartoons in Punch in the Dentist's waiting room, and the thing Neil said about how much stuff there was just lying around randomly to read.

Sorry for your loss. Books and loved ones are so intertwined xx

God I must have read so much Woman’s Own as a kid. See THIS is what we’ve lost as a culture.

SAME!

My favourite (and last) aunt died yesterday and I was thinking about the fact that I used to spend hours at her house as a kid reading stuff like her pile of Woman's Own just because it was there and not something we ever had. I'm sure I learned a lot from it that my peers never would have.

This is not nearly as beautiful and meaningful, but to this day I’m very excited when we go to stay with my in-laws and I get to read their tv listings magazines full of extensive plot descriptions of soap operas I do not watch.