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Sep 2016 · Blog
My 2016 summer reads settled into three sections: thrillers, literary fiction, and nonfiction. Here are thoughts on that literary side: Don Carpenter Hard Rain Falling. Don Carpenter is a new writer for me, reclaimed in the…
Read more →Sep 2016 · Blog
As part of summer reading, I line up a bunch of thrillers. Here are thoughts on this summer’s stack. Noah Hawley Before the Fall: The big new thriller of the summer. Plane goes down, and…
Read more →Sep 2016 · Blog
Rempstone moved its church some centuries ago. Its old graveyard remains behind scraggly hedges in the centre of a field, a yew tree breaking through the box tombs. My father Cyril Goodman now lies…
Read more →May 2016 · Blog
My mother had a clear spell in her illness in which to discuss her funeral. She chose a service in the chapel of Loughborough’s convent. Her coffin was woven out of willow. Cars followed…
Read more →Apr 2016 · Writing
You know a man is straight because he tells you. It’s slipped into the first conversation – my wife, my girlfriend, the girl I fancy, he says. For years, a gay man was less…
Read more →Apr 2016 · Blog
Before the chance to get married, gay couples collected a range of anniversaries: the first meeting, the first date, the first bonding, moving in together. James and I clocked our first wedding on February…
Read more →Apr 2016 · Blog
September 2009 and I am staying in a Zen monastery in New York State. Its Abbot is dying, and I have come to interview him about his teacher and the place’s first Abbot, the…
Read more →Apr 2016 · Blog
Hackney police tweeted an appeal: ‘“Jack SUSIANTA aged 17, missing from E5. Last seen wearing blue converse T-shirt, green shorts and grey socks. Subject does not have any shoes on and is possibly on…
Read more →Mar 2016 · Blog
Julian Barnes agreed to come and talk to students at Hull about his book A Sense of an Ending on one condition – he would be taken to visit the grave of Philip Larkin.…
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