Anyone who has suffered writer's block might take consolation from the life of John Ferrar Holms. In the first of two posts, Jonathan Law introduces perhaps the least productive 'writer' in the English language... On a murky day in June, Mark Pack wrote feelingly about the miseries of writers’ block – ... Read More...
Non-Fiction
Toby Ash discovers an extraordinary nature writer... Firstly, thanks to landscape writer and all round literary top of the class Robert Macfarlane for introducing me to the extraordinary prose of Anna (Nan) Shepherd. He talked about her in his books Wild Places and The Old Ways (a Dabbler Book Club choice), ... Read More...
The conservationist ideology is full of contradictions, according to a new book. Elberry, who anyway would be "happier in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, daubing himself with blue woad and hunting his enemies with a stone club", reviews it... I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It ... Read More...
Jonathan Meades - who gave an exclusive interview to The Dabbler earlier this year - has a new book out via Unbound - here, Jonathan Green reviews it... The gathering together of US farming families for the purpose of rolling newly cut logs, so heavy that a single family could not ... Read More...
For the first time in history, more than half the population - 3.3 billion people - is now living in cities. Elberry reviews 'the ultimate guidebook to our urban centres'... From the sky, England still looks green. On the ground, it's another story, all cancerous conurbations and serial ghettos. Most people ... Read More...
A major new academic work on Wittgenstein reveals the human face of a brilliant but difficult man, finds Elberry... In an age of meretricious academic nonsense, Wittgenstein in Cambridge is a professional, scholarly work. Professor McGuinness has collected and edited nearly 500 pages of letters between the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and ... Read More...
Spiritual enlightenment and the wisdom of the Zen masters - yours for only a penny!... Keen Dabbler readers may recall my fondness for the joke about the man who has an orange instead of a head. In fact it is not a joke at all but a profound Zen parable. And ... Read More...
It's received terrific reviews. But what did Dabblers think of our latest selection? First, we hear from Dabbler Book Club Member and Scotland's first soupmonger, Elaine Mason, then from Dabbler Editor, Gaw. Elaine Mason: Some books you pick up as a distraction. Others are relaxing; an unwinding at the end of a long ... Read More...
Announcing the winners of this month’s Dabbler Book Club choice… Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie is our latest Dabbler Book Club choice, announced here. We began our week with a ship's encounter with an iceberg, as does Jamie's book and here's a taster: The next iceberg offers to the ship a ramp as smooth and ... Read More...
Nature writing is something we enjoy and sometimes do here at The Dabbler. The next Dabbler Book Club selection is right up our woodland path: Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie. Here's what Philip Hoare, himself no mean writer about nature, thought of Sightlines: Kathleen Jamie, the Scottish poet, has written a book that ... Read More...