Graduation

Graduation day at @BirkbeckNews is such a joyous occasion! Congratulations to my MA #Medieval Literature & Culture students (here I am celebrating with new graduates Graham, Ruth, & Lucy) and to all the @birkbeck_arts graduates on their fantastic achievement 🎉 🍾 🎓#BBKgrad pic.twitter.com/rK6xuQG9lh

— Anthony Bale (@RealMandeville) April 26, 2018

Recent Reading

I was in King’s College Hospital in January between the 12^th and the 26^th - and since then I’ve been recuperating.

While in hospital I tried to read Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book, but its focus on a pandemic illness and plague seemed unhelpful.  So I stopped and read John Le Carré’s The Night Manager instead.  I went back to the Willis later, once home.

Anyway, from my time in King’s onwards I read (not necessarily in this order):-

The Night Manager, John Le Carré

The Doomsday Book, Connie Willis

Injury Time, Clive James (I enjoyed this, but still feel his Sentenced to Life is better - or at least it speaks to me more).

Come on Everybody: Poems 1953–2008, Adrian Mitchell. (Good fun).

Family Values, Wendy Cope

The Geek Heresy, Kentaro Toyama (Says stuff we all know, or all should know, and it is a little overlong and American).

The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook, Michael Brooks

Collected Poems, Clive James 

The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey (This was really good. I went to look at a copy of the paining in the NPG afterwards)

Mr Darwin’s Gardener, Kristina Carlson (trans. by Emily and Fleur Jeremiah)

Deus Homo, Yuval Noah Harari.  (So terrible I found myself thoroughly enjoying disagreeing with it).

Back When We Were Grownups, Ann Tyler.  (I know a lot of people like this, but I found it sad and quite depressing).