The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings By Geoff Dyer (Audiobook read by Richard Burnip, 11h 29m, Canongate Books, £21.87) . It’s late June, Wimbledon’s upon us, and Geoff Dyer is talking about his tennis injuries. Geoff Dyer is always talking about his tennis injuries. It’s one of his endearing features. But when […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged 9/11, Achilles, age, Al Pacino, Alfred Tennyson, Americans, Andy Murray, Anthony Powell, audiobooks, Beethoven, Bjorn Borg, Bob Dylan, Burning Man, Canongate, Chuck Yeager, Coetzee, Custer, David Cameron, David Thomson, De Chirico, death, DH Lawrence, drugs, epigraphs, football, footnotes, Geoff Dyer, George Best, George Saunders, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gillian Slovo, Gillian Welch, health and safety, Henry James, humour, James Last, jazz, Jean Rhys, JMW Turner, John Berger, John Coltrane, Jorah Mormont, London, loo roll, Martin Scorsese, Mike Tyson, Mohicans, Nietzsche, Paris, Pete Sampras, Peter Ackroyd, Philip Larkin, Raymond Williams, Rebecca West, references, Richard Burnip, Roger Federer, shampoo, Tarkovsky, TC Boyle, tennis, The Doors, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, the Olympics, trains, William Basinski, Wimbledon, work, WWII, YouTube
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In which I, ASH Smyth, High Anglican atheist, descendant of Huguenots, dissenters, Presbyterians, Church of Ireland types, and maybe even Quakers, make my Catholic press debut, on Phil Klay’s Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. — For The Catholic Herald
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Also tagged Afghanistan, America, Americans, Barack Obama, books, Catholicism, citizenship, Iraq, Jesuits, John McCain, Journalism, Libya, movies, Navy Seals, Niger, Pakistan, Penguin, Phil Klay, politics, Somalia, St Ignatius, Syria, The Catholic Herald, Ukraine, USMC, veterans, war, writers, Yemen
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Attempting – unsuccessfully – to get my head round the roots of the Ukraine war, via Orlando Figes’ magisterial Crimea. — For Perspective
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Alaska, Alexander Morrison, Andrey Kurkov, audiobooks, Austria, Bessarabia, Blackadder, Britain, Christianity, Circassians, Cossacks, Crimea, Florence Nightingale, France, imperialism, Islam, Jerusalem, Kalmuks, Malk Williams, maps, NATO, Nicholas I, Nikita Kruschev, Orlando Figes, Perspective, religion, Russia, Ruthenia, Tatars, the Army, the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Danube, the Falklands, the Great Game, the Mediterranean, the Ottoman Empire, the Pacific, the press, the Royal Navy, the Soviet Union, trade, Turkey, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Wallachia, war, WWI
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In the run-up to the 40th anniversary commemorations, a review of James O’Connell’s step-by-step first-hand account of one of the Falklands War’s bloodiest battles. — For Perspective
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged 3 Para, Aldershot, Argentinians, audiobooks, bayonets, Brian Bowles, Brigadier General Julian Thompson, christenings, Colin Mace, communications, death, Elliot Fitzpatrick, Freddie Gaminara, Geoffrey Lumb, grenades, helicopters, Huw Parmenter, Ian McKay, injuries, James O'Connell, Joe Gaminara, Korea, landmines, Max Hastings, mental health, Moody Brook, Mt Longdon, Oseloka Obi, Paul Panting, Penelope Rawlins, Perspective, plastic surgery, Port Stanley, Sam Newton, shit, Simon & Garfunkel, tea, the Falkands War, the Victoria Cross, the Victory Bar, Union Jack, war, youth
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The Red Sea Scrolls: How Ancient Papyri Reveal the Secrets of the Pyramids Pierre Tallet and Mark Lehner Thames & Hudson £30 319pp (1.216kg) . Because I once made the mistake of dabbling a bit in Egyptology, no less than every other week – in the year 2022 – some friend (‘…’) will schwack me […]
Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy by Symeon Brown, Atlantic Books, £16.99 . Born when we were born, and embarking on writing ‘careers’ (LOL) just as the web ripped the financial guts out of the paper industry, my idea of a good time is to phone my best […]
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Also tagged 50 Cent, Atlantic Books, Black Lives Matter, books, Cardi B, Channel 4, China, Clubhouse, Covid, crime, cryptocurrency, dropshipping, Facebook, fashion, Fashion Nova, finance, influencing, Instagram, Jordan Belfort, Journalism, Kylie Jenner, LimeWire, LinkedIn, livestreaming, music, plastic surgery, pyramid schemes, rap, religion, social media, Soulja Boy, Symeon Brown, Texas, The Critic, The Wall Street Journal, TikTok, Tottenham, Turkey, Twitter, YouTube
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Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Review of Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood’s poem/song/story/play on where past and present meet at Orford Ness. — For Perspective magazine
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Also tagged audiobooks, fiction, Hugh Brunt, landscape, Max Porter, music, Orford Ness, Penguin, Perspective, Poetry, Radiohead, Robert Macfarlane, Scarfolk, Stanley Donwood, Stephen Dillane, Suffolk, the Falklands, war
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Review of Werner Herzog’s Das Dämmern der Welt – or (probably) The Twilight/Dawn (of the?) World. — For Perspective
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Also tagged army, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Audible, audiobooks, Emperor Akihito, Ferdinand Marcos, German, Google Translate, Hanser, Hiroo Onoda, Japan, kochbananen, Lubang, Perspective, Philippines, the Falklands, the moon, the Stasi, translation, TS Eliot, Vietnam, war, Weltanschauung, Werner Herzog, WG Sebald, WWII
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Thursday, September 2, 2021
Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World by Emma Marris Bloomsbury £20 (hardback) . Stepping slightly sideways from where she left off in Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, Emma Marris now turns her attention to a series of ‘exercises in practical philosophy’ on the ethics of humans versus(?) wild animals. From […]
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Also tagged biodiversity, birds, books, chimpanzees, death, ecology, Emma Marris, ethics, evolution, food, Geographical, Hawaii, nature, New Zealand, philosophy, polar bears, rats, the Arctic, the Royal Geographical Society, veganism, Yellowstone National Park
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Saturday, August 21, 2021
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner Canongate, £16.99, pp576 . In 1928, modest young blue-collar English lecturer Mildred Fish arrives in Berlin to begin her PhD in American Literature. In the febrile, polyglot atmosphere at the […]
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Also tagged Adolf Hitler, America, Berlin, biography, Canongate, capitalism, Communism, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, France, Goethe, Great Britain, history, Hjalmar Schacht, Jews, John Dos Passos, Joseph Goebbels, literature, Lufthansa, Mildred Harnack, Operation Barbarossa, Operation Walkyrie, Plötzensee Prison, propaganda, Rebecca Donner, Rebecca West, spies, Stalin, the Soviet Union, The Spectator, Theodore Dreiser, trench coats, Winsconsin, WW2
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