If you've read STAIRCASE IN THE WOODS or any book by any author, please leave a kind review somewhere in a proper review receptacle. Leaving these reviews helps the book, helps the bookish ecosystem, and also we are sustained by them as we sit in the corner and greedily gnaw on them like squirrels.
I know what you mean - they're both fascinating characters in their own right, and the relationship just intensifies that interest tenfold. I don't think it's possible to come away from the book liking them, exactly, but you definitely get a clear picture of what drove them.
If you want to go for it, the audiobook is the best way - it's extremely well-performed by Justin Avoth, who also narrated Lewis's Peter Sellers book.
Some of the digressions and tangents are fun and enlightening, but some are just self-indulgent. It's great, but could easily have been shorter.
IMAGINE A FRIEND is out today.
Tell all your friends, real or imaginary!
You'd think the sinister force that's taken over the country would've silenced them by now.
There's a lot of repetition and space-filling tangents (including a long section about Sophia Loren that's a straight lift from his Peter Sellers book), but he just about gets away with it for me.
You really had to gather your nerve if you wanted to make any kind of personal call.
Reading Roger Lewis’s Burton/Taylor biog ‘Erotic Vagrancy’ and continuing to struggle with the notion of Burton still being alive until 1984.
My brain just can't make sense of this most 1960s of men existing in the era of Kajagoogoo, Princess Di and Brookside.
Those were the days. Before Crispy Ocelot sold out and went all commercial.
And no internet! Everything has to be done the old way - which is a great way to bring the characters closer together.
Three more from the Hump Plumping Injectables later in the programme.
Thanks very much - that's great to hear! I really wanted to write something warm and with some charm. Hopefully I got close to that, at least. When it came to the characters, Beth was a huge help. Thanks to her notes and comments, I managed to give everyone a bit more depth and reality, I think.
Out now in print, on Audible and free with Kindle Unlimited.
'Part time-travel tale and part emotional rollercoaster, this is a beautiful read' ✭✭✭✭✭ - Kat K, Amazon.
www.amazon.co.uk/How-Soon-Now...
#BookSky #WhatToRead #MondayReads #MustRead #TimeTravel #ScienceFiction
This is a great article about a stunning record - 'A Dawning', by Olafur Arnalds and the late Eoin French, AKA Talos.
If nothing else, scroll to the bottom for a profoundly moving version of the album's closing track, 'We Didn't Know We Were Ready'.
faroutmagazine.co.uk/how-communit...
I never understood the tin-can telephone thing. It never worked, and you could only use it when you were within earshot anyway.
Also included in 'The Ladybird Book of Broken Legs Waiting to Happen' (1964).
"Many Americans seem to have forgotten just how catastrophic US regime change wars have been in the past. So, with the risk of history repeating itself once again, here is Zeteo’s list of seven of the US’s most disastrous attempts at regime change, ranked"
I wonder if a drone has hit Dubai Marina. Or whether it was just
debris from a successful interception.
If only loads of Dubai based accounts, including Isabel Oakeshott's, could tell me.
Bluest blue steel EVER.
Here's a lovely thing - a brand new live album from ex Kitchens of Distinction/Stephen Hero luminary Patrick Fitzgerald (@kitchensod.bsky.social on here), with songs from across his 1989-2025 back catalogue in joyous new form.
patrickfitzgerald.bandcamp.com/album/an-ach...
It really is. The lyric is like a short story, full of perfect little details - very moving, but never sentimental or mawkish.
A brilliant piece of work in every way. That guitar tone is one of the best on record, too.
I had a man* called Samson Ultimate offer to bring my books to the attention of millions of readers. I was tempted to go with it, just for his name alone.
* an AI man.
The US is fucking up so badly in Iran I'm beginning to think they've brought in Morgan McSweeney for strategy tips.
Might be time to give the Cherry Red extended ‘C86’ a spin…
It’s so good, isn’t it?
Have you read Nige’s ‘Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?’ Also fantastic!
Sploot!
Happy World Book Day! Celebrating Alasdair Gray—novelist, artist and champion of Scottish and Glaswegian identity. Here is his self-portrait aged 16 (1951) writing at his desk, from his illustrated autobiography A Life in Pictures (2010).
On this day, March 5, 2024: Decorators' radio.
Happy birthday!
