Monthly Archives: July 2026

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 →