Posts Tagged Reading
Archive
December 13, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Books That Blew My Mind # 9: “Holidays on Ice” by David Sedaris
Holidays On Ice by David Sedaris I’m not really one for Christmas books. But there’s one favourite, one must, every year I read (and now re-read) David Sedaris’ story, The Santaland Diaries. It’s special to me for a couple of reasons – first of all it was my introduction to the world of Sedaris. I […]Archive
December 11, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Poem: I Wrote My First Poem Over 30 Years Ago
I handwrote the poems first, then typed them up after – and I was inspired at first by the music I was listening to and the poetry I was reading. There are still a few poems that survive from those early years and I’m locked in a pact with myself to never look at them. […]Archive
November 2, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Science Fiction Double Feature: Writing and Reading Sci Fi
Advances in science and medicine have meant we can now predict the life expectancy – we can know how long everyone will live. We know if the life will be cut short. Everyone is given a medical passport when they turn 10. It is stamped with an expiration date. The last six months of anyone’s […]Archive
October 24, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
In Praise of Audible Plus
I’ve signed up to Audible again. I’ve done a few free trials over the years and bought a three-month membership and so on. But I always break-up with Audible, because I feel like I’m cheating on podcasts… Remember, we talked about audiobooks – when I wondered if they ‘counted’ as reading. (They do, by the […]Archive
October 8, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
What’s The Worst Music Bio You’ve Read?
I’ve never been as disappointed by a music bio/auto-bio as I was when reading the Bernard Purdie one; it’s hard to know what the book was even trying to be – it’s written in third person but claims to be an autobiography, there’s no attempt to even ‘get’ Purdie’s voice, there’s no real attempt to hide […]Archive
September 29, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
The Not-So-Great Gatsby
I’ve never liked The Great Gatsby, never been able to see the fuss. I first read it at school – I understood it enough to pass the test, to write the essay, answer the exam-questions and I took it seriously enough to watch the 1974 film adaptation (the one with Mia Farrow and Robert Redford). […]Archive
September 12, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Reading In Stolen Moments
To have time to read is, I swear, the ultimate luxury. But at the same time, it’s nourishment for the soul. And I consider it a necessity. To be brain-fried to a level where you cannot sit with one book for FOMO regarding all of the other books you’ve bought or have on loan might […]Archive
September 7, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
My Favourite Author That I’ve Never Read
I couldn’t know I was doing this at the time, but the day before we went into lockdown I armed myself with a bunch of books by George Saunders. I did this because he’s one of my favourite writers that I’ve never read. You read that correctly. I often write about Authors I Admire but […]Archive
September 4, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Poem: King Collection
The first book by Stephen King that I read was Pet Semetary – with its typo in the title. And maybe I didn’t even know that was wrong when I read it – everything seemed so right, I’d found my new home. The second book by Stephen King for me was It. The cover as […]Archive
August 31, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Some Lockdown Reading
I’m a big reader, always with several books on the go. My mixture of genres (always a graphic novel on the go, always a volume of poetry, usually one or two non-fiction and a novel or book of short-stories too) and the mix of library books, things to review, things borrowed from friends and new/ish […]Archive
August 19, 2021 by Simon Sweetman