No, I Shall Not Be Giving Away My Books
Two months since my last blog entry and we’ve STILL not moved house. It’s a process I’m really not enjoying - greedy middlemen waiting on...
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Paul Read
Jan 31
Dusting off the Cobwebs
We’re in the protracted and painful process of trying to move house and I’ve aged ten years in two months as a result. I spent most of...
Paul Read
Dec 31, 2023
Will AI Usurp the Human Novelist?
In the dystopian age of 2024, artificial intelligence will continue to revolutionise numerous aspects of our miserable lives, from...
Paul Read
Oct 25, 2023
'The Miraculousness of the Ordinary'
20 pieces of famous writing advice For some while, I’ve been keeping micro-snippets of advice from famous authors in a notebook. I’m not...
Paul Read
Sep 30, 2023
Ex nihilo nihil fit
After twenty years, I ended it. The relationship had been one-sided for some time and she’d be the first to admit that. It’s a hard thing...
Paul Read
Jul 29, 2023
Write Drunk, Edit Sober
We all know who said that, right? Wrong. Ernest Hemingway* wrote sober and edited sober. He was, undeniably, a big fat drunk, but he...
Paul Read
May 21, 2023
Something's Amis
William Wordsworth's autobiographic epic The Prelude contains a section in which the young Romantic poet steals a boat and oars his way...
Paul Read
Apr 13, 2023
The Bone-Chilling Terror of Disneyland
A headache in technicolour. A commercialist hymn to storytelling and cultural appropriation. A delicious cocktail that still manages to...
Paul Read
Feb 27, 2023
'You Murdering Ministers' - Still Ripping Off Macbeth
After the brutal fight, James Bond panthers into the bathroom and spies Vesper Lynd huddled under the shower, the water soaking her...
Paul Read
Jan 31, 2023
Look on my Works, ye Mighty
An argument in favour of comic book fiction as a literary art form Look, I’ve read a lot of ‘important’ books in my time. During my...
Paul Read
Dec 18, 2022
Musings on Homesickness in a Cabin Replete with Farts
I’m writing this in two places. One at 10,000 metres and the other, in the near future, six hours from now, in the shadow of Mount...
Paul Read
Oct 28, 2022
In Praise of The Uncanny in Literature
The spooky season is upon us, so I thought I’d write something befitting of Halloween and explore an oftentimes-maligned genre. I haven’t...
Paul Read
Aug 29, 2022
Procrastination or Just Burn-Out Culture?
I’ve been delaying writing this for some time. Because that’s what we do. If a writer has a period of spare time, you can bet that...
Paul Read
Jul 26, 2022
Determinism and the Writer-God
This morning I wrote my standard 1000 words, which is the minimum I attempt to accomplish when I’m working on a novel and not suffocated...
Paul Read
Jun 3, 2022
LOVE
The third in my BIG THEMES series of articles, which are easy to spot because I USE CAPITAL LETTERS. For some reason. Lately, I’ve been...
Paul Read
Apr 14, 2022
In the Footsteps of Graham Greene
I am a pilgrim. For some, a celebrity pilgrimage might entail visiting the childhood home of assassinated central American freedom...
Paul Read
Apr 3, 2022
The Agony and the Agony
MEMEnto Mori: Internet Memes about Writing that are so Accurate they're Painful
Paul Read
Feb 19, 2022
Storm Eunice and Pathetic Fallacy
It occurred to me yesterday, as I sat listening to roof ribs sliding down slick tiles and smashing through asbestos garages, that such a...
Paul Read
Dec 23, 2021
'Buried with a Stake of Holly Through his Heart'
A Christmas Carol is more sinister than you remember. Ah, A Christmas Carol, Dickens’ beloved story of redemptive holiday spirit, Tiny...
Paul Read
Dec 3, 2021
Speaking Words of Wisdom
Or, How Flannery O'Connor and Paul McCartney are on the Same Page. I began this blog last year during the first nationwide lockdown and I...
Paul Read
Nov 14, 2021
TIME
It's Christmas next month. But it was surely only Christmas last month. I don't understand. 1991 was thirty years ago and the last...
Paul Read
Sep 25, 2021
Why 'Of Mice and Men' Sucks and What We Can Learn From It
Granted, there are suckier, less beloved books out there but, let’s be honest, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is as deeply flawed as it...
Paul Read
Jul 31, 2021
Why Finished Doesn't Mean Finished
This morning, I walked twenty kilometres, hoping a new story might rearrange itself in my mind. It didn’t, but I did get to top up my...
Paul Read
May 29, 2021
SEX
I can pinpoint the exact moment my mother stopped reading my second novel, because the bookmark still reposes at the end of the chapter...
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