Jun 23, 2017 | Latest
Almost all of my media interviews in the past few months, including much of my commentary on Twitter, have been dominated by the Brexit issue. Again, this morning I was interviewed by Hayley Millar, BBC Scotland, about Brexit and the proposed pact between the DUP and...
Mar 1, 2017 | Latest
Finished Summer Before The Dark by Volker Weidermann and about which I have mixed views. I bought it because I am a big fan of the writer Stefan Zweig but was also influenced by the incredible number of good reviews and endorsements it received. Its premise is sound:...
Jan 22, 2017 | Latest
Two days after his meeting with communist GDR officials, Hans Herbert Grimm, went home to Altenberg and committed suicide. It was 1950 and Grimm was fifty-four years of age. Grimm, a schoolteacher, had taken part in WWI, and in 1928, anonymously, wrote a...
Jan 7, 2017 | Latest
Finished reading and was very disappointed with Bertolt Brecht’s didactic Threepenny Novel, which was written in 1934. Couldn’t engage with it, found little or no redemption although there was some humour. What I learnt is that in 1934 a soft boiled egg had to be...
Dec 30, 2016 | Latest
My interview with the New York-based Irish Echo is now available and can be read here – irish-echo-interview
Dec 26, 2016 | Latest
The Irish Times cultural section carried a feature on Then The Walls Came Down and the US-based Irish Echo also published a Q & A with me on the book. Here they are, with the Irish Times first: A prison diary made up of love letters As Then The Walls Came Down is...
