Two of the best movies I’ve seen this year were coincidentally “dramaheist" movies. But as these things tend to go, that may be more zeitgeist than coincidence. I loved American Animals earlier in the year; a student art-heist movie, which...
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I remember going through a stage of reading book after book and wondering why every single novelist writes in the exact same style. Now and then you might find someone with a slight lilt to their style (Kevin Barry springs...
continue readingConfirmed: When I stick to themes that I already know like I'm usually happy: New, fresh, contemporary, darkly comic, dysfunctional, character-based. Reconfirmed: When I try books everyone raves about, which I've a gut feeling aren't for me I'm nearly always disappointed:...
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What’s a Fitbit Flex? A fancy pedometer, that you wear permanently, which counts your steps, and syncs with apps to show you nice visual stats, and gives you a surprisingly rewarding 5 lights when you reach your target. Is that...
continue readingThe Book I’ve been meaning to write this review for a while but the book is a Kindle Daily Deal today. So get it while it's cheap. The Movie I think sometimes, that people look in the wrong places for...
continue readingSome books really seem to narrow the gap between short stories, novellas, and novels. Take George Saunders’ Tenth of December, the off-kilter dystopian world these short stories are set in give it a combined narrative that makes it seem very...
continue readingI really enjoyed this. In fact I always seem to enjoy books that feature quirky families. And it doesn't get much quirkier than a girl who grows up with a chimpanzee for a sister. Karen Joy Fowler is a very...
continue readingI don't have a good track record with ye old classics. I've found a lot of them quite dated, regardless of how ahead of their time some of them once we're. And others are just a bit too... stiff &...
continue readingOMG! I completely forgot about this childhood thing where I used to hang upside down and tell friends to look at my hair as if it’s a beard and my forehead as if it's a mouth.... Doesn’t that look hilarious?...
continue readingI created a course on Memrise called 100 Dublin streets. Here's an explainer: What's Memrise? A site that makes it very easy to memorize lists of items. It's good for learning languages but also Trivia like learning all the capitals of the...
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