Some musings on the benefits of holidays and doing nothing from a former compulsive worker. What’s to be gained by taking it easy?
Some musings on the benefits of holidays and doing nothing from a former compulsive worker. What’s to be gained by taking it easy?
What does it mean to be human? It’s perhaps one of the hardest questions one can ask oneself, or anyone else, and I’m not expecting to come across a coherent answer anytime soon. But, rather strikingly, two books I’ve read over the past week or so approach this existential problem from very different angles. The result being two books I’d highly recommend, not in the least because they speak to each other in quite unexpected ways.
I am a technophobe. I don’t have a smartphone. My laptop is at least ten years old. Its spelling checker… Read more The Haze of Holidays Past: Or how a Dreadful Shopping Experience Brought back a Lovely Memory
Thinking about Vienna, I thought of touristy clichés: Sissi, opera, Mozartkugeln. Naff, quaint, boring. Not to worry. I wasn’t going… Read more How I Was Almost Eaten By Fish In An Abandoned Bunker: An Unusual Travel Story
Going to a cinema to see a documentary about psychiatry does not sound like a recipe for a great night out, let alone a recommendable tourist activity, but hear me out…
What is it that makes nature writing so alluring? Can nature, or even just reading about it, be an antidote to stress? On tree hugging, daffodils and karate.
A reflection on why you don’t always need to travel far to experience nature. And flamingos.
Rarely have I encountered a less ambitious explanation of an author’s reasons for starting a literary career. But then again, Hubert Selby Jr. was no ordinary writer. Writing about the down and out, while struggling with poor health and addiction, one probably cares little about the literary establishment and its self-invented rules…
My author copies of my book have finally arrived and it’s putting me in a reflective mood. It’s been quite a journey…
Is Oscar-contender Green Book a classic feelgood film or a problematic representation of real life events? The truth may lie somewhere in the middle.