Category: books
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‘A kestrel for a knave’: in memoriam Barry Hines
In March the news came that Barry Hines had died. My mind flashed back to the time when I went with my mother to a cinema in Barnsley to see Kes, Ken Loach’s second feature film that was based on Hines’s short novel, A kestrel for a knave, published in 1968. It was late 1969…
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Geiriaduron a Karl Marx
Digwydd bod yn swyddfeydd Gwasg Gomer yn Llandysul rai wythnosau yn ôl, a dod o hyd i hen gyfaill, D. Geraint Lewis. Roedd camerâu Heno yn yr adeilad, i ddathlu cyhoeddi llyfr mawr, a doedd dim cyfle cael sgwrs. Achos y dathlu oedd y llyfr mwyaf a gyhoeddwyd yn hanes y cwmni, sef llyfr gan…
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The Eagle flies again
On our coastal walks C and I have discussed most things under the sun. One of them, on a Gower trip in early September, was the Eagle comic, which we both read as young lads. Now C has lent me his battered and beloved copy of the Eagle Annual Number One to read over Christmas…
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August Kleinzahler v Google: knowledge in excess
For my money the liveliest American poet at the present is August Kleinzahler. I first came across him in his collection Sleeping it off in Rapid City (2008), a title that says a lot about his themes and his expression. He’s quite well known on this side of the Atlantic – Faber now publishes him,…
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Iain Sinclair goes home
Urban is his element, and London his patch. But now, in his early seventies, Iain Sinclair has come home to his native Wales for his latest book, Black apples of Gower. For someone who’s followed the path of his wanderings and writings for years – I joined the trip late, with White Chappell, scarlet tracings…
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Ar y Mynydd Du
Golygfa ddu yw hi, o bob cyfeiriad, does dim dwywaith. O’r A48, er engraifft, wrth ichi yrru o Gaerfyrddin tua Cross Hands, mae’n anodd osgoi edrych draw, am eiliad o leiaf, i’r wal dywyll, fygythiol o fryniau sy’n ymestyn ar y gorwel yn y dwyrain – ymyl gorllewinol y Mynydd Du. ‘Du’ mewn ffordd arall…
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Rambling women
Hay-on-Wye on a sleepy summer Monday outside Festival time is a fine place to be. True, you have an acute feeling of being one of a dwindling number of ageing middle class readers as you wander from second-hand bookshop to second-hand bookshop. But serendipity, so painfully missing from an Amazon search, is a subtle and…
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Nightwalking
The literature of walking is large. It’s grown quickly in recent years, in part as an offshoot of the ‘new nature writing’. Most of it, though, is concerned with walking in the light of day. Nightwalking has received much less treatment. Frédéric Gros, in his recent A philosophy of walking (2014) fails to mention it.…
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Cymry’r Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf
Ydych chi’n chwilio am lyfr dibynadwy a darllenadwy yn Gymraeg sy’n dangos hanes y Rhyfel Mawr mewn geiriau a lluniau, o safbwynt pobl Cymru? Os felly, does dim angen arnoch chwilio ymhellach na Cymry’r Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf gan Gwyn Jenkins, cyfrol odidog a gyhoeddwyd yr wythnos ddiwethaf gan Y Lolfa. Dyma lyfr hardd (ie, hardd,…
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In the Chair
Today the e-book version of my book In the chair is published by Parthian Books. As the subtitle says, it’s in essence a practical guide: ‘how to guide groups and manage meetings’. Its aim is to help people who find themselves in the position of Chair to learn the craft and become successful. Strangely little…