Stuart Evers

I find the week before going on holiday a productive time to read as I can't justify taking a half read book on holiday with me. Now cramming in as much time with Flashlight by Susan Choi as possible. Helps that it's largely wonderful.

Unlike 'I'd rather Floss (than Christopher Cross) which was no 1 in seven different territories.

Goodbye to this queen. Survived 13 months longer than prognosis and was fucking mint throughout all of them. Je t'aime, Margot. RIP

I watched the whole thing in slack-jawed horror.

I recently discovered that a film was made of Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont in 2005. Last night I sat down to watch it. Oh my. If there is one way (and in this film they find multiple) to piss heartily on the sublime magic of Elizabeth Taylor, it's to set the film in the present day.

I'm off to Trieste in a couple of weeks. Any recommendations?

It's been a while since I've read a Delillo and there's always a little worry that the paranoid chill won't work on me any more. And yet, it always feels like a reset. A hymn to the power of American English sentences. The glorious sheen of his prose.

After spending most of my running time listening to late 19th and early 20th Century European novels, I've now gone over the pond and am listening Delillo's The Names, which is one of his I've never read. It is a tonic. A strange tonic, mind you.

Here's hoping.

Very exciting!

It's certainly where I got it, as well as an instant reaction that anyone who says Annie Hall I (in my head) say Annie Who? (which is what the guy Polly is talking to says when she asks him if he's seen Annie Hall)

There are moments of sublime writing in Susan Choi's FLASHLIGHT; moments too of exquisite understanding, of surprising insight. It's been a while since I've read a longish book that has hooked me so quickly.

Fair response.

Reading glasses

Surely mentioned already, and apologies if so, but What We Talk About When We Talk About XYZ

Had an intense evening in with The Mobius Book last night. Catherine Lacey is one of the most interesting, arresting writers, and I can feel it leaving little legacies for a long time to come.

It's a delicate balance and I think he manages it, but only just. There are some moments about a third in that just feel deliberately confusing.

So, finished The Good Soldier last night. Loved it when I read it 30 years ago, but now it feels both slighter, and more interestingly written, than I remembered. The cyclical feeding of information remains utterly sublime though.

I have been humming this to myself over the last two hours.

Was going to take Margot to be put down this morning. She's had underlying health issues and massively deteriorated over the last 48 hrs. This morning she got up and started chasing flies, eating Dreamies and sauntering around like the queen she is. This is the most cat behaviour ever.

My cat was supposed to be put down this morning but has made a massive and unlikely recovery, and now this. I might buy a lottery ticket...

Called IsWizrd?

Saw Percival Everett deliver an intriguing lecture on authenticity last night. It's set me thinking about how we judge authenticity, and whether it's a judgement that needs to be weighed when considering fiction.

What's worse is that I played the exact same puzzle on another SpellBee site and that allowed CHILBLAIN.

Saw Tim MInchin last night; off to see Stereophonic tonight. I am a cultural machine.

So sad to hear of the death of Edmund White. The Farewell Symphony was such an important book to me.

I think there's two kinds of writer. Those who approach their keyboard saying "We shall see what we shall see" like Richard Pryor in Superman III, and every writer in the world who isn't me.

Can't wait to read this, Stu!

I still think of the roundup from one of their early books. Still makes me laugh at the Angela's Ashes pastiche.

I'm about to start reading The Good Soldier for the first time in 30 years. I wonder what I will make of it now (I was obsessed first time around).