As much as I like reading, it’s never going to be the first thing my brain wants to do at the end of a long day. Maybe it’s that way for some nerds, but it’s never been that way for me. This is especially true with the type of literary…

One of the more popular tropes I’m finding in my occasional voyages into literary fiction is the “purgatory journey.” This is nothing new, of course — Dante and the Ancient Greeks were quite into this sort of thing — but it’s definitely had an upsurge of late. Lincoln in the…

Ah! The twee middle class urban novel. I knew it from the minute I set eyes on this book and its cutesy cover design. We would be in comfortable WASPish ennui mode, following a middle-class, middle-aged, middle-weight (for relatability purposes, although the author is always stick thin) woman called something…

It’s that time of year again — the time when I walk into Waterstones and say, “Hi, yes, I used to work here many years ago. You might remember me. Please could I have half price on all six of the books shortlisted for the Booker prize?” And because Waterstones…

There are a lot of times when I think to myself that I should write, that I could write, that I ought to write more. There’s something particularly motivating about Hamilton, an impetus double-whammy. Firstly, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songwriting, all those refrains interwoven in so many combinations, with so many inflections…

I think one of the reasons why politics in developed “““Western””” economies is so polarised and resentful is because we all think the other side is winning/has won already. I have a strand of thoughts about this, and I’m pretty sure it’ll come across crass and oversimplified, but here goes: …

I’m late to the party with This Is Going to Hurt, but as usual when late to parties, I didn’t regret it. What a fantastic adaptation. Bold, sharp, magnificently acted, edited to the point where the jarring emotional juxtapositions feel somehow coherent, and funnier than anything I’ve seen on the…

10. Belfast Following in a long line of cheery, feel-good Hollywood films set amid a backdrop of horrendous human tragedy, Belfast just didn’t do it for me. Whereas the likes of Life is Beautiful or Green Book received more than their fair share of criticism, I haven’t seen Belfast subjected…

Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Ten seconds after I read about Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, fear floods and sense subsides. Though there is no outward reaction, you see it most clearly in the nervous tap of my right leg against the seat of the train…