“Let’s talk about adverbs,” he said, swiftly
A couple of posts ago, I mentioned Stephen King’s splendid book On Writing, and referenced his personal ban – which I think he’d like extended – on adverbs. “The adverb is not your friend” he said, adding, “the road to hell is paved with adverbs and I will shout it from the rooftops.” Loudly, no doubt. […]
My book’s cover
A slight deviation from the usual stuff in this blog entry, which is all about my forthcoming book “Time Travelling WIth A Hamster”. Reason being, that the UK cover is now available for anyone to see on Amazon.com (rather than just being my phone’s screen saver for the past few weeks), and I think it’s […]
Magical and fabulous: There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake
God, I hate so-called “magic realism”. In books, at any rate. I don’t get along with Gabriel Garcia Marques, or Isabel Allende, or any of that lot. (For some reason, I don’t mind it in films. I’m thinking of The Green Mile, which I like a lot, but there are plenty of others. I’m not sure why […]
Lost in translation: A Man Called Ove
There’s a lot to like in Fredrik Backman’s novel about a cantankerous widower in contemporary small-town Sweden. It’s a neat story with an unusual protagonist and it will no doubt be made into a lovely film with someone like Stellan Skarsgård in the title role. But my God, the translation! Henning Koch, who did it, […]
