Tues 31st August. I head off to the London Review Bookshop in Bury Place, in order to buy the London Review Of Books. The shop stocks the latest issue a day or two early, even ahead of the issue’s contents appearing on the LRB website. So today I get to read a brand new Alan Bennett story, ‘The Greening Of Mrs Donaldson’. Like ‘The Clothes They Stood Up In’, and ‘The Uncommon Reader’, it’s another tale of a buttoned-down character getting a new lease of life. This time, a widow lets her young lodgers skip rent in return for a ringside view of their sex life. There’s also amusing scenes from her job as a stooge patient for medical students.<\/p>\n
I wonder why I’m so excited about buying the LRB this way. Then it dawns on me. In the 90s I used to love getting the weekly music papers, NME and Melody Maker, on a Tuesday lunchtime in Camden, a full day before everywhere else. It was a magazine buying experience with the hint of privilege, even time travel. Priority boarding. <\/p>\n
With the music papers, there was a sense of trying to join a club. Of wanting to Belong. Now I merrily stroll through life in blissful ignorance of who the current crop of strange-haired bands are. Instead, I have a passion for wanting to read the latest Alan Bennett story hot off the press. Which suits me, at the age I am (39 this Friday). It is a Seemly Passion. <\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
In pursuit of further Seemly Passions, I’m working my way through the current Booker Prize Longlist. Quite enjoying the excuse for a dip into the latest literary fiction, using my library card. Here’s my Twitter-length reviews so far. <\/p>\n
Alan Warner’s Stars In The Bright Sky. Young Scots women mooching about at Gatwick & Hever Castle. Touching, funny. 8\/10.<\/p>\n
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. Unlikeable Aussies. Good last 50 pages (of 500). Lots of smoking on the verandah. Should be more of a page-turner. Isn’t. 7\/10<\/p>\n
February, Lisa Moore. Canadian oil rig disaster widow reflects on decades of grief. Happy ending. Moving. Superb detail. Prefer Alan Bennett’s widow solution, though. 8\/10<\/p>\n
Damon Galgut’s In A Strange Room. South African man’s frustrations en transit. Worrying depiction of Kafka-esque health care in India. Old fashioned existential-lit. 8.5\/10<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Am attending regular one-to-one sessions with a government employment adviser. She gets me firing off job applications, tweaking my laughable skeleton of a CV, and it all feels wrong. I need to do something though, so here I am. Would I consider voluntary work, she asks. Not really, I say ungratefully. <\/p>\n
You can’t sit at home watching daytime TV all your life, she says. And then she hastily adds – seeing me about to complain – not that you’re the sort of person who does that!<\/p>\n
Last paid job: giving a one-off talk at the National Portrait Gallery (Aug 5th), on Queer Perspectives. While wearing a curfew tag. Wonder if that’s a NPG lecturer first. Need to write up the talk and put it online. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tues 31st August. I head off to the London Review Bookshop in Bury Place, in order to buy the London Review Of Books. The shop stocks the latest issue a day or two early, even ahead of the issue’s contents appearing on the LRB website. So today I get to read a brand new Alan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[299,300],"class_list":["post-2015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-booker-prize","tag-not-knowing-what-to-do-with-myself"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2015"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2017,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions\/2017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}