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Continue reading →: The Knockout Artist by Harry Crews
American Literature – First Published 1988 At one stage Eugene Talmadge ‘Knockout’ Biggs’s promoter boasts that the young boxer from rural Georgia has had 72 successive knockouts. It may be a correct statement but those knockouts are actually of himself. After a dodgy start in the sport his best friend…
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Continue reading →: Olalla by Robert Louis Stevenson
First published 1885 A young British officer, wounded in the Carlist civil wars that afflicted Spain in the mid 19th century, goes to an isolated dilapidated mansion in the mountains to recover. There he falls in love with Olalla, the beautiful daughter of a decaying aristocratic family. She slowly reciprocates…
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Continue reading →: The Bohemian Swiss National ParkI was based for two days and nights at the hikers’ car park in Dolní Světlá. On Tuesday I ate at the restaurant I had been at for a beer the previous evening. Goulash and potato croquettes with a couple of beers for just over ten euros. Earlier in the…
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Continue reading →: The Lusatian MountainsI started the day on Monday with a hike up to the peak of Špičák from Oldřichov where I was the night before. We were out early, just after 8, and back at 10:30 for coffee. I then drove about fifty kilometres west in a roundabout way, but roughly along…
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Continue reading →: The Man From London
Hungary – 2007 – in French The best directors can make us look at cinema in a different way, the Hungarian, Béla Tarr is such a filmmaker. This story started life as an excellent Georges Simenon novel, published in 1934. On a cold, foggy night in the channel port of…
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Continue reading →: Krkonoše National ParkFour years ago I finished the TransCarpathians course in the mountains south of Wrocław. That last section of the Carpathians is the Tatras range. In this trip, I am continuing west initially to the range called the Giant mountains in English, but known here as the Krkonoše mountains. The area…
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Continue reading →: Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán
translated from the Spanish (Chile) by Sophie Hughes – Published 2024 The protagonist and narrator is Estela García, from the Chilean island of Chiloe but working in Santiago as a maid, or ‘nana’ to a wealthy family.I lived and worked in Santiago myself for five years and know of many…
To live more widely
supera superiora sequi
SafeReturnDoubtful is my alias.
Where is Andy?
I was so much older then…
Quote of the Week
Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, ‘What road do I take?’ The cat asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it really doesn’t matter, does it?’
Lewis Carroll
Safe Return Doubtful 