The Last Battle by CS Lewis
I re-read this book over the xmas holiday because the slip-case collection of Narnia books that I read as a child turned up in a relative’s garage, and because of a coincident interview with Phillip Pullman on the S[…]

Tom Wesselman
1931-2004
His work lacks the cool arrogance of a Warhol or the theoretical complexities of johns at his best; but he has something else–he has a formalism, and a sense of space that amazes–his layers and levels are the firs[…]

I was surprised that Star Of The Sea was so little about the actual voyage of a ship from Ireland to New York during the potato famine, and rather an attempt at a literary pastiche to try and fill in a lack of nineteenth century Irish literature. For[…]

The Big U by Neal Stephenson
This was Stephenson’s first novel, before the PoMo blockbusters. Unsurprisingly therefore, it’s a campus novel, but it’s not like any other campus novel I’ve read. There are comically useless profe[…]

by way of farewell to a complicated (and intermittently awful) (but with good bits) year
i guess i think of contrarianism more as a tool than a principle – i like it for its effects not its “morality” – except i also know say[…]

Thankyou Santa
This kind of thing is why Grant Morrison is my favourite comics writer:
“The Fortress appears in issue #2, stuffed with a ton of new toys and gets haunted by the bandaged ghost of the Unknown Superman of 4500 AD. The Kandorians f[…]

The Scavenger’s Tale by Rachel Anderson
This is an interesting and impressive novel. It’s slim and simply written: she also writes children’s novels, and brings that clarity and precision here, but this would surely be too harrowing[…]

WARNING BAD SEX
“Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth … Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on[…]

This is one of Taschen’s wonderful art books – I think they are sometimes disdained because of their mass market production and remainder shop appearances, but they are superb books, always with very high quality text and imagery – […]

Happy Now by Charles Higson
Is Higson our leading renaissance man? Modest success as a pop star, writing for Reeves & Mortimer, a leading performer in The Fast Show, and also a fine novelist – I suppose Jonathan Miller ranks higher in such[…]