On Noticing

I’ve been working — or at the very least, sitting at various desks, typing — for about 18 years. Before I had a career, I thought what I would do was write literature, or at the very least, serviceable novels. Then I spent a few years as a technology journalist, and another few as an editor. By the time I…

On Stone Circles and building things

1.

It is fairly common in England to see small plaques set into the front of older houses with chiselled numbers saying when they were built. 1906, 1871, 1832. In Cartmel, a little village at the southern tip of the Lake District, home of…

A Year in Books, 2017

I’ve had trouble sorting out what I read last year. The books themselves aren’t sorted. We moved in November — so…