Category Archives: Uncategorized

Do I really need to read more popular psychology books? Apparently I do, because after seeing this interview in the Guardian, I went out and bought Being: Why It’s Harder to be Human than a Hamster or a Herring. Rachel … Continue reading →

…the uncommonly astute author Rachel Cusk tore away another veil for me in her essay ‘Making Home’, describing our houses as a loci of tension and considered design, simultaneously looked at and lived in. She examines our psychological compulsion to … Continue reading →

Charlie Porter begins this book in 1920, with Virginia Woolf writing to T.S. Eliot, confirming his invitation to stay at her home, Monk’s House, in rural Sussex. The letter concludes: ‘Please bring no clothes: we live in a state of … Continue reading →

Even though we have been visiting Adelaide for over 30 years to visit my husband’s folks, I’d never been to the State Library. The Museum, yes. The Art Gallery, yes. Last week, my husband took me to see the place … Continue reading →

The department’s ‘principal enemy’ was the United States, with Britain as a close second. …Department V…became known notoriously as the ‘wet affairs’ department for its proficiency in ‘liquidating’ targets. The Defector is the story of a KGB Department V agent, … Continue reading →

In meandering long hours spent with friends I often have the welcome feeling of having drunk to my heart’s content from a deep well. I associate such time with the replenishment that is possible in leisure, without effort or agenda. … Continue reading →

The pen scratches across the page rebel hump rebel hump rebel hump*. What do these words mean, asks the pen. I don’t know, replies the wrist. These are the words forming and the writer, stationed at Dolina Charlotty, in a … Continue reading →

Minoru Aose is a middle-aged architect, single, divorced, and with only monthly visits with his teenage daughter. When he’s asked to replicate his famous ‘Y residence’ for some new clients, he decides to visit it for the first time since … Continue reading →

Being a good person, or at least becoming a better person, became part of my Stoic journey because it was one of the only three things that were under my complete control. Forget about trying to change other people to … Continue reading →

It’s a little like the search for the perfect handbag. It takes years, decades even. You try and then buy, hoping for the right size and shape with the ideal ratio of pockets, flaps and zips, thinking you have it … Continue reading →