Books I’ve been unable or unwilling to finish recently. This is a big step for me. I used to think I owed the book, the author and the universe the obligation of finishing a book when I started it. Rather like hatching a chick, when the eggs broke you’ve got to watch it grow, even if it’s brain-muddled with only one eye. So here goes, a list of books that are unputdownable, only I did. Tom Rob Smith (2009) Child 44 . I got to page 13 on this one...

Blood, revenge, slaughter. Hack their heads off with swords, display their severed limbs as trophies. Men feasting together in the meadhall, men fighting the enemy that springs at their back when they sleep. Bards,ballads, monsters, heroes. Women, proud tribal queens who worship the courage of their men. These are no pagan barbarians, they are Christians, God is in their hearts and fights beside them as they spit the enemy on swords so much a...

I have been on our planet for over 3 decades now and I have heard of “jihad”, I have read of women being put to death, I have also studied a course with an Islamist woman who even in her tone was always forceful and pushy and made my anger levels rise with her unwavering voice of ‘or else’. I have never read a positive story about Islamists. I have not read of them starting orphanages or putting value on human life. I have not read of them...

So now we have Mustaffa Brother and his brother! Derek at the top of his game when he worked in menswear!

I came across a few interesting things in my reading this week – not least of which was an article in the Huffington post this week exploring a new reading phenomenon in Japan – Cell Phone Novels . Sound weird? They certainly are – they sit somewhere between the poetic concision of a haiku and the manic social gracelessness of a tweet – but that said the most popular text novel, It's Your Fault ( Kimi no Sei ) by Sakura Imo, has been read 17...

Last week I had the good fortune to speak with Julian Jordan, the co-founder of Write Out Loud , a grassroots organisation dedicated to encouraging poetry in the UK – mainly through a very extensive and very user-friendly gig guide, though they also host their own events and feature reviews, poet profiles and literary news. They’re the UK’s largest live poetry resource, and if you’ve any interest in poetry at all, the site is very worth...

The cover of Death and the Penguin has the outline of a penguin in black, one wing is the barrell of a gun and the other a handle, the trigger is superimposed on the white bib of the penguin. It’s ingenious. I was halfway through the book before I noticed. The book is genius. Set in the Ukraine, after the fall of Communism, Viktor Alekseyvich Zolotoroyov is a writer that can only manage to write the occasional short story that no one wants to...

I've shortened Writing Process Blog Tour to (WPBT). No I haven't. I'm tryng to make it longer and more interesting. "As part of the Writing Process Blogging Tour, I've been invited by John Allen - a freelance writer to talk about what my writing process is." Writers always start off by saying it’s hard work. Maybe you’re in the wrong profession. Writing isn’t work. Writing is just messing about with words. The consolation is that most of the...

I watched the movie and it was as scary as a box of melted Maltesers. Part of the reason for that is my fault. I’m old and cynical and nothing much on the telly can scare me as much as looking in the mirror. I thought I’d give the book a chance. After all it inspired a film and an extended run on stage as a play. Nineteen years one of the blurbs on the book tells the reader. Wow. The book must be really good. It’s only 160 pages (including...

'I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour. But heaven knows I'm miserable now' Morrissey song. Is it miserable drivel? I say no, The Smiths' frontman can write, we know this from the music. The first hundred pages are best, we meet the sensitive, sickly child from 'streets upon streets upon streets upon streets' (page 1) of inner city crumbling terraced Manchester. Family life is alright, there's piles of them; most of clan Morrissey moved over...