What I read
Finished Let the Record Show, which is very good, both as an account of ACTUP during the years in question and what it achieved and how and the reasons why things began to fall apart or at least, began to go in different directions, and as a model for thinking about other activist campaigns and the shifts that take place and that there ( Read more... )

What I read
O Douglas, Jane's Parlour (1937), which I felt a bit meh about.
Jane Haddam, Flowering Judas (2011), re-read, just because, and because I couldn't remember the details of the plot.
EM Delafield, The Suburban Young Man (1928). This is definitely one for the Delafield completist, i.e. not bringing anything like her A game. (Apparently she ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Judith, which felt like Streatfeild got bored and decided to skip over a whole load of character development, so there was a sudden change which happened very fast after a break in the narrative leaving one wondering where it came from.
Genevieve Valentine, Icon (Persona #2) (2016). I read Persona way back in 2017 and enjoyed ( Read more... )

Kathryn Hughes, A museum is not an iPod: There's something unique about visiting a real exhibition in real time that you miss online:
According to a new study, led by London School of Economics academic Tony Travers, 42 million visits are made each year in the UK. Apparently this beats the number of people who watch Premiership and league football.
( Read more... )

From today's Observer:

Constant cravings
Once it was alcohol and cigarettes. Now it is anything from Viagra to text messaging to sushi. With the modern age has come a whole new world of vices.
Wow, the sheer originality of the idea that the modern age has entirely new vices: how far back does that one go? I bet it was already old by the time of the ( Read more... )