On White Space

My collection of essays, White Space, appeared in November. It collects work from more than half a decade, largely writings on books. Among descriptions of novels and anthologies of poetry that I thought were worth remarking upon, there is much contemporary politics. And in this radicalising age, there is much there too on extremism of all kinds.

On Being Left a Library

Of all the features of bereavement, cardboard boxes are the most incongruous and the most inevitable. They help, and sometimes obstruct, the packing up and dispersing of a life. They carry possessions which have become things, in the hope that they may yet be possessions again.