What makes a book a bloody good read ? Of course that’s a subjective question, but in the main I reckon it’s the result of a whole host of literary aspects that align in the right place at the right time for the right reader. It might be the tightly-knit thriller element that keeps you [...]
Believe it or not, I’d never heard of the term ‘dead bedrooms’ until just the other week, when I was having a chat with an old friend about the conundrum of marriage and what makes it so terminal. As soon as she mentioned the phrase dead bedrooms, something deep inside me all at once came [...]
It’s easy to hate a guilty man. A hard man. A killer. It’s easy to feel outrage for his crime, to desire retribution, accountability, punishment. It’s human nature; and we’re all human, no more, no less. It’s easy to mourn the victim, to feel horror at his final moments, the cruel senselessness of his death. [...]
Falling in love again. That’s what the sultry Marlene Dietrich sang, way back in the nineteen-thirties. 70-plus years on, she might as well still be singing the same words. I mean she’s right, isn’t she? We fall in and out of love again and again and again. Or is it just me? – in which [...]
Today is Fat Thursday in Poland. (Tłusty Czwartek to the Poles.) A day of over-indulging yourself with greasy, fatty, calorific donuts to your heart’s content. All bakery shops will be stacked mountain-high with them; most work places will be offering platefuls of the melt-in-your-mouth delights to their employees; practically every shop window will have a [...]
The story I’m about to relate might at first seem a tad inappropriate, in view of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. But it’s a true story. And if you can’t be honest in the light of everything that the word ‘liberation’ stands for, then what’s the point in having been liberated in [...]
With the start of a new year, I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship with you. Yes, you, my once-beloved inner demon. You’ve given me some of the most euphoric moments in my life – hope, excitement, promises for a golden future; but time and time again you’ve fallen short of your promises. And [...]
