The style is plain and simple, and all the more powerful for that.
Read MoreQuick looks
Quick looks: The Great Exchange: Making the news in early modern Europe

The real history of news is not about a chronology of technological inventions.
Read MoreQuick look: The Penguin Book of Polish Short Stories

The stand-out aspect of this collection for me is the way it has been organised into categories, a brave choice I think.
Read MoreQuick look: The Penguin Book of Bengali Short Stories
These stories really provide a short glimpse into a culture of which I am almost completely ignorant.
Read MoreUpcoming book reviews June 2025
This is just a very quick heads-up. I’m just about to send off four reviews to Teach Secondary magazine. I will post the reviews here once they’ve been published there (that’s the deal), but here are one-liners to whet your appetite.
Read MoreQuick looks: The Oxford Book of Caribbean Stories
One of the things I think can add to one’s enjoyment and also improve one’s writing is to read stories from other cultures.
Read MoreBooks added to the TBR heap
This article is an excerpt from a longer one that appeared on my Eclecticism newsletter.
Read MoreBooks I'm reading or about to read

I’ve been sent the following books by publishers, and will review them in due course. Here is some information about them.
Read MoreBooks received
Here are a few of the books I’ve been sent for review recently, covering AI, maps, time travel and language.
Read MoreMy Jane Austen collection
Quick looks: Jane Austen; Write, Cut, Rewrite; Handwritten; The Book At War; From Edtech to Pedtech
Since I read Northanger Abbey when I was in my twenties, I have to say that in the interim it has much improved. Clearly, Jane must have taken a creative writing course or two because it is now much funnier, more cutting and more modern, what with her stepping outside the story to comment on her characters and the novel form itself.
Read MoreQuick looks: Triggered Literature PLUS an extract from my new version of Macbeth
A very timely publication. The first section is replete with anecdotes about trigger warnings and similar. Some of these are, in my opinion, ill-informed (such as the charges levelled against Jane Austen) while others are ridiculous (like the rewriting of parts of the Noddy books).
Read MoreChristmas reading
Here are a couple of suggestions for your reading pleasure. They are not Christmas books, but big hefty tomes that need a bit of time to wade into.
Read MoreQuick look: The Artist's Journey
Back in April 2023 I reviewed The Writer’s Journey, and this is a companion volume by the same author.
Read MoreQuick looks: Once Upon A Prime

I recently received this book, and I’m enjoying it very much. It looks at the (usually hidden) existence of maths in literary works.
Read MoreQuick looks: Solutions for Writers

This is packed with useful information. I’m especially looking forward to reading the the sections called How to Show Instead of Tell, and Using the Techniques of Fiction to Enhance Nonfiction.
Read MoreQuick looks: The Notebook

This comes out on 2nd November. It has a very readable style, and interestingly the footnotes are in a different font from, and bigger than, the main text.
Read MoreQuick look: Retroland, by Peter Kemp

This book arrived recently, and I’m very much enjoying reading it. It’s a kind of guided tour or survey of the types of fiction that have appeared in the last fifty years (mainly).
Read MoreQuick looks: Oulipo and the Mathematics of Literature

Berkman has written an interesting and very academic examination of the links between maths and literature.
Read MoreQuick look: The 12 Week Year for Writers
This is a book about strategy and meeting objectives rather than a how-to-write guide.
Read MoreQuick look: Guerrilla Publicity
This book is aimed at the small business person who has more energy than money to spend on publicity. That sounds like a description of most writers!
Read More