Don's a hell of a guy. If you get a chance to see him in person, don't hesitate. He's got cool stories, and he's a fine reader.

yup, I'm going to see Alien again...

the long build up to this ridiculous pun is possibly my proudest moment in the entire Sean Duffy series

Readers of The Peregrine: a fabulous-looking exhibition called Restless Brilliance, about JA Baker's life & work, opens Chelmsford Museum on 23 March.
Images below of some exhibits: his maps, binoculars, drafts & a glimpse of the man himself.
More here: citylife.chelmsford.gov.uk/posts/chelmsfo…

in 2023 only 3 pple on Earth read this book but all 3 of us picked it as our book of the year

Tom Stoppard in the TLS
Thomas Nagel in the London Rev of Books
& er, me, in the Sydney Morning Herald

at the Venn intersection of D Day nerd & philosophy nerd

now available on amazon

My final book tour.

I hope you will come say hello and goodbye.

I am grateful for every single reader.

ok I'm going to have to walk this back now...

The Tourist S1 took a hack premise - amnesia - but made it fun & inventive w smart characters doing logical things

S2 however is rushed, repetitive, clichéd w our now stupid characters doing illogical things to increase jeopardy

👎

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

- Philip Larkin

gentlemen you can't fight in here, this is the war room

my review of Paul Theroux's Burma Sahib in today's Sydney Morning Herald

smh.com.au/culture/books/…

free to read w your google account or similar

I always try to smuggle in an obscure Ulster word into my reviews usually 'sheugh'

you have to click to find today's mystery word 😉

&, er, speaking of Sean Duffy...

delighted to say that

THE DETECTIVE UP LATE has been shortlisted for the

2024 BARRY AWARD for Best Novel

thank you to the Barry judges and to the readers who nagged the shit out of me for 4 years on this platform to write this book!

Sláinte

Jamie Dornan played rugby for Ulster, he's charming, funny, ridiculously good looking (tho no more so than your average guy from Belfast, ahem)

his dad delivered 3 of my sister's kids (the 3 good ones) & he'd be a great Sean Duffy

anyway check out his fun new show THE TOURIST

yes I know I tweet it EVERY February but I love this poem

FEBRUARY

by Margaret Atwood

fav line this year? back to this one I think:

'Cat, enough of your greedy whining and your small pink bumhole.'

I don't often re-read BIG books but Ridley Scott's disastrous Napoleon left such a bad taste that I cleansed my palate w Andrew Roberts
masterpiece of a biography, NAPOLEON

at night I paired it w the reasonably priced Francois Voyer Napoleon Grande Champagne Cognac

both 👍

well this is nice: the guardian calls the new Sean Duffy novel, THE DETECTIVE UP LATE

'a towering masterpiece'

theguardian.com/books/2024/jan…

starting the year w Philip Larkin

well, I have to break my twitter exile for this news...

THE 12 BEST THRILLERS OF 2023
washingtonpost.com/books/2023/11/…

I've not quit twitter but I wont be here much anymore as trolls, ads & glitches have made this site hard to take

when I do tweet it'll be my usual nerdy stuff: poetry & philosophy

otherwise I'll take Wittgenstein's advice

'whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent'

Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestseller Upton Sinclair not afraid of losing his dignity selling the Fig Leaf paperback edition of Oil! in Boston

Animal Farm rejected by TS Eliot not because of the quality of the writing which he says is up there w Jonathan Swift but because:

1 It's the wrong time to talk shit about the Russians (July 1944)

2 Eliot doesn't quite buy the logic of the universe