Stuart posts regularly on Twitter, Threads, Insta etc as “Babel Colour”. His posts are well worth reading, and this gorgeous book collects some of his best images:
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Just finished “Cabaret Macabre” by Tom Mead, who has made a specialty of locked room mysteries. This was the third in the series, but the first one I read. The fourth was reviewed in The NY Times this week, which is how I discovered him.
If you like Golden Age puzzle mysteries, it’s a doozy. He’s not the world’s greatest stylist, but neither were John Dickson Carr and Ellery Queen.
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He’ll be appearing at the 92nd St. Y this fall with Glenn Kotche, the drummer for Wilco. Not sure what they have in store.
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Yes, that sounds a bit strange.
Now reading… (Just starting)
On Character
Choices That Define a Life
By General Stanley McChrystal
From the publisher…
From the bestselling author of Team of Teams and My Share of the Task, reflections on character, and who we choose to be.
“Reputation is what men and women think of us;
character is what God and angels know of us.”
—Thomas Paine
How to measure a life? After a career of service, retired four-star general Stanley McChrystal had much to contemplate. He pondered his successes and failures, his beliefs and aspirations, and asked himself, Who am I, really? And more importantly, who have I become? When I die, how will I be measured?
In the end, McChrystal came to a conclusion as simple as it was profound: the reality of who we are cannot be recorded in dates or accomplishments. It is found in our character—the most accurate, and last full measure, of who we choose to be.
On Character offers McChrystal’s blueprint for living with purpose and integrity, challenging us to examine not just our deeds but who we become through them. Drawing from a lifetime of experience, he distills profound insights on setting and meeting standards, aligning actions with beliefs, and offers practical advice on overcoming obstacles and pursuing self-improvement.
According to McChrystal, character is not a trait inherited at birth, nor does it automatically come from education, position, or experience. Character, instead, comes down to a succession of choices, most mundane, several momentous, that reveal the deep truth of our capacity for virtue.
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That’s amazing. I have to get tix.
About to begin
From the publisher:
In his foreword to this fine miscellany, Irish academic Augustine Martin describes its collected works as, “an exquisite drama of personal sensibility and the creative process, with Kennedy’s shy, depreciating consciousness at their centre.”
I have first read the title story several years ago in a German anthology of Irish short stories.
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Wonderful words here from Irvine Welsh ahead of his shortly-to-published sequel to Trainspotting….Men in Love.
Well said sir. 
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I think Sally Rooney is an excellent writer. Her latest novel explores grief and messy romance in a real page-turner.
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There is a video and fuller version of that interview on iPlayer. He is also at Southbank this Sunday doing a chat about men in love.
John Fowles, The Tree Little Toller edn illustrated by Ed Kluz (2016). First published in 1979. Autobiographical reflection on nature writing especially trees. I read this in a day (about 100 pages). While I disagree that botanical knowledge damages aesthetic appreciation, this slight book has some evocative passages, particularly the encounter with Wistman’s Wood.
I’m going to re-read The Magus in Lyme Regis this Summer, the first time for 45 years.
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Same effect has been in operation for decades courtesy of Newcastle Brown Ale 
The real threat will arrive with singularity - the I’ll be back moment 
As a young man I had something of an obsession with John Fowles’ The Magus. Despite having read both the original and the revised book at least three times, it is still something of an enigma..
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I enjoyed reading this. Great band, love Quadrophenia and Who’s Next.
I suspect that’s the point, Richard. Nicholas and Alison are fictional characters, so we can’t resolve the ambiguous ending beyond the story frame. Do they meet again or not?
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I spent a miserable weekend doing an on call in the worst hospital in the NHS and was sustained by The Magus
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I’m afraid to reread The Magus. I can’t believe it will have the impact it had when I read it during college.
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I agree this is a fair supposition, it may well be a young person’s book. Like Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes which was an inspiration to Fowles.
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For those who like the Phillip Kerr (Bernie Gunter series) I have just been notified by Apple TV that they are planning to screen an adaptation of Berlin Noir some time in the near future. Probably won’t be anywhere near as good as the book but I’ll watch it anyway.
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