( Read more... )

( Read more... )

It is a bit like primitivepeople who has been keeping a diary of the books he has read this year. I have gone one better and kept a photo book diary!

You can click on any of the books to see a bigger pickture. If you like any of the books, or if you like me, why not comment to say how much you like the book, or me.


( Read more... )

It is easier to look at this than if I tell you the 735 things that I want.

Keith Lard's Wishlist

It is also worrying as it gives you unprecedented access to the dark reaches of my inner mind. It is scary in there!

I am reading The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, a beautiful hypnagogic dream of prose poetry heady with scents and spices, as though Joanne Harris had written The Famished Road, only with more curry recipes. I like the idea that each spice is a power and a spell, cinnamon friend-maker, chilli lanka fire-child, cleanser of evil, ( Read more... )

It has turned all cold and horrid today and so I have hurried home to close all the windows, put on the central heating and some cosy warm jumpers, and get out the extra duvet. I quite like it when it is cold, especially at autumn time when everything smells different and it seems like people ought to be having fireworks and getting ready for Xmas ( Read more... )

I had a delicious barbecue with pinkthing999 and I invented a special new spicy barbecue dish called Steaks Finchley! It is some posh steaks marinaded in my personalised masala sauce with fresh ground roasted whole spices including cardamoms, fenugreek, cumin, cloves, dried chillis, black pepper and fiery North African harissa chilli paste! It is fun to make ( Read more... )

I have been reading the most depressing books lately. First Tony Parsons' Man and Boy, which is so sad in places that I started snuffling on the Tube and then when people looked at me suspiciously, pretended I had a cold and blew my nose in a theatrical manner. Then Star Turn by Nigel Williams, the story of a disappointed man's pointless and ( Read more... )

"The doors of Darkplace were open. Not the literal doors of the building, most of which were closed. But evil doors. Dark doors. Doors to the beyond. Doors that were hard to shut, because they were abstract, and didn't have handles. They were more like portals really. From this day on I'd have to fight these forces of darkness, and deal with the ( Read more... )

I know it is fashionably cynical to decry the commercialised nature of Christmas ekcetera, but it is rarther jolly to get presents all the same. So if you like me and want to see my little face light up on Christmas morning, I have got quite a lot of things on my Amazon wishlist that I would like:

keithlard's wishlistI do not want to seem ( Read more... )