The End-of-Life Handbook recommends using ritual to create meaning. Continue reading →

Three stars does not mean average. Three stars means it was really good. Continue reading →

The religious battles of the 2000s in the USA backfired spectacularly and any victories were pyrrhic and temporary. Continue reading →

The core idea is sound. According to the author of The Three Languages of Politics, there are three separate buckets of political thinking in the USA: a libertarian bucket, a progressive bucket and a conservative bucket. For each bucket, there … Continue reading →

I know about all the setbacks and and the successes. I know all the great put downs (Lady Astor: “If I were your wife, I’d put poison in your coffee.” Churchill: “If I were your husband, I’d drink it.”). I know all the speeches. … Continue reading →

I’ve developed a habit in recent years of getting so excited after reading the first few chapters of a book that I want to write a provisional review before I even really know what it’s about. Francis Spufford’s project is … Continue reading →

When I was 20, my girlfriend’s brother bought me Bleak House for my birthday saying “I love buying books for people who will get pleasure from them.” I’ve flirted with Bleak House more times than I can remember but there is always … Continue reading →

The Road is about a man and a boy. And nothing happens.

They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it … Continue reading →

[It’s that time again. That time when I rummage through my unfinished posts folder and decide which one’s would be better out than in and which belong in the digital toilet bowl. This one from March 2012 (barely) made the … Continue reading →