Reading Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. Subjects: entropy, degeneration (physical, social, moral), and the phenomenology of time. Set in a Swiss sanatorium with a cosmopolitan clientele, before the First World War; Mann's heavy-handed metaphor for a 'sick Europe'. Narration proceeds at an absolutely glacial pace, appropriate to a door-stopper of ( Read more... )

For any professional or aspiring travel writer, Mark McCrum's guide to travel writing clichés provides an essential crib on what not to do.

How sad, then, that The Grauniad's Simon Holt appeared not to avail himself of McCrum’s wisdom before crafting his review of the Sheraton Noosa Resort in Noosa Heads. The publication date (13 January 2014), ( Read more... )

Like Father, Like Son: A beautifully crafted Japanese film about what happens when parental ambition collides with questions of identity, inheritance and belonging. The premise involves two ordinary families at very different ends of the social spectrum, who learn that their babies were swapped at birth. DNA testing confirms that this "accident" ( Read more... )