A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

As Misha Glenny says on the cover of this remarkable book: read it "if you wish to know how the world really works." An astonishing work of investigative journalism revealing so many layers of acrid truth about our world's lust for stuff. Brilliant and depressing in equal measure

.Penguin Books UK celebrates its 90th anniversary today. When Allen Lane, with his brothers Richard and John, co-launched Penguin in 1935, it sparked a paperback revolution in the UK.

I love the stories in Jeremy Lewis's brilliant biography of Allen Lane of the three brothers, who lived together in the same house in the early days of the press, all in the bathroom each morning doing their ablutions. And on Friday's, drinking rioja and going through submissions

Good question.

Wittering about ghostwriting: linkedin.com/feed/update/ur…

Louis Armstrong, August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971. also known as "Satchmo," was a famous New Orleans born trumpeter, singer and bandleader. La vie en rose, Live 1959 Belgium youtu.be/EfNWAboguJQ?si…

Yesterday’s ⁦BBC Proms⁩ performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring by ⁦BBC Philharmonic Orchestra⁩ was astonishing. I’m so envious of those who were there at the Albert Hall. The 20th century unwound in 40 minutes. bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

Steve Reich’s Music for Eighteen Musicians, performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2011, produced by eighth blackbird. Go on, you know you want to. youtu.be/ZXJWO2FQ16c?si…

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work—then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.” Leo Tolstoy

Oh, is this a possibility: Roy Keane parachuted into Man U to end the crisis?

I am co-leading a reading group of The Man Without Qualities with Samantha Rose Hill , beginning October 13th. Join Us! Access to details in reply!

“For broken dreams, the cure is, dream again and deeper.” C.S. Lewis Image: Moonboat by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, 1920s #BookologyThursday #BookChatWeekly #FolkloreSunday #fullmoon #lunareclipse is coming

Happy 83rd, Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski With Werner Herzog on the set of Nosferatu, the Vampyre (1979).

Lovely. I read all 12 novels during the summer of 1982 when I had a job as a porter in the gifts department of Harrods. I had my own little cubbyhole in the basement and was occasionally roused to wrap up a musical cottage to be posted to Texas. The rest of the day, I read Dance.

I've just started reading this by Elisabeth Gifford. Like her, I suspect, I've been fascinated by the du Maurier/Barrie relationship for years. The Mischief Makers is really excellent: so assured and fluid. I'm really enjoying it.

Such sad news. I remember reading V in the London Review of Books about a million years ago and being astonished by the craft and vision and skill. He was the true voice.

Melville’s brief cameo in Jean- Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960). The French New Wave had been slowly rising two years prior. Breathless (1960) Jean Seberg Dir. Jean- Luc Godard Jean-Pierre Melville, October 20, 1917 – August 2, 1973.

The great Jack Kerouac died on this day in 1969: “I clearly saw the skeleton underneath all this show of personality what is left of a man and all his pride but bones?”