This will hurt me...

Isn't it ironic, don't you think? My desk at home, Geilston Bay. August 2011. Another day, another substantive draft review disappeared into the ether. Consider this the truncated version... Graham Greene’s Our Man In Havana might be a touch more satirical than his more literary offerings (he considered this one an ‘entertainment’), but that doesn’t stop it being a rather dark send up of intelligence services, written at the height of the Cold War. The plot revolves around a vacuum cleaner salesman recruited into the British Secret Service, increasingly out of his depth who eventually finds himself in a hole. His solution? Keep digging! It’s a great read that manages to touch on his regular themes (Catholicism, ‘duty’, love and death) while remaining light enough to provide a few laugh-out-loud moments. Highly recommended. Hans Keilson’s Comedy in a Minor Key was actually written in 1947, but didn’t receive an English translation until much later. This short novel centres on ...

The morning sun of the office desk. No more shall be said. Curruthers Building, St Johns Park, New Town. March 2011. Another day, another too books! This week, the theme is depressing , albeit for quite different reasons. Book one is Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore . I’ve read a few of his books, and although he’s not the most refined of writers, one thing that Caryl Phillips can do is tell a story. This story is one of two people, both lonely and exist largely outside the mainstream of society. One is a retired teacher and the other an African refugee. Stylistically, the book's sections jump between the perspectives of the two main characters, and the story is relayed in a non-linear, broken fashion, so the reader is often caught on the back foot in terms of the narrative. This isn’t too frustrating, although the emerging fact that one of the central characters – who increasingly narrates in the first person – is unreliable, throws in a bit of a twist. Most novels of this kind w...

The view from the cubicle. Level 4, Carruthers Building. St Johns Park. New Town. July 2010. Action stations! I figured that as I'd shown you my old desk , so I may as well show you the new one. Yes, this is where the magic happens. It's a long way from glass case by the sea...