One Thousand and One Nights

Hanan Al-Shaykh, 2011

(January 2012)

Framing stories then. Wheels within wheels. Matryoshka dolls, one inside the other inside the other. This is the granddaddy of them all. Grandmother perhaps would be better, with Geoff’s merry pilgrims acting as paterfamilias, ‘cos this is all about the ladies.

Nailing Screws

Or screwing nails, one of the two. How we nail the screw which screws the… Fuck it, you know the drill by now.

Know the drill. God I’m a funny bastard.

Pedagogical Epistemology

Or epistemological pedagogy, one of the two. How we teach how we know what we know. Or maybe how we know what we know to teach and how to do it. And know it. No. How we know what we want the students to know and how to teach them how to know it, and how we know they know it.

Bollocks. Let’s start again shall we?

Pyongyang

A Journey in North Korea

Guy Delisle, 2006

(January 2012)

A cartoon account of an animator’s brief stay in Pyongyang. Nothing to Envy covers the same ground more authoritatively and is frankly a better book. But comparing the two is perhaps as unfair as it is inevitable. This is basically just a travelogue, despite the uniqueness of its subject matter.

Thirty-six Views of Mount Kurumi

Oh. Self-raising flour. The recipe said self-raising flour.

(Don’t) Lend Me Your Words

Old joke. English couple on holiday in the south of France. Rent a darling little gîte just outside the most picturesque village imaginable. Visit the shops every morning to pick up freshly made croissants. Eat delectable coq au vin at a charming restaurant on the town square. On their final evening a band start playing. The music is beautiful and finishes all too soon. Desperate for more, but not knowing how to ask, the wife turns to her husband and demands, ‘Quick! What’s the French for encore?’

Snuff

Terry Pratchett, 2011

(January 2012)

The man is a genius. Simple as that really.

Stations

I fucking hate stations.

It doesn't matter how much practice you get at saying goodbye, it never gets any fucking easier.

Here's a completely unrelated picture of Vladimir Putin -

Normal service will resume on Wednesday.

Lend me your ears

And the rest.

Down to the Bone

Justina Robson, 2011

(January 2012)

Pacey, undemanding, fun. At last. After the weightier, more blatantly intellectual or satirical stuff I’ve been reading recently I figured I deserved something more obviously frivolous. Cyborgs, demons, faeries, and elves. Sit back and go with it.