Lee Ward
@leewardmister.bsky.social
It's books and music all the way down.
Skewed by gym time
December 3, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Skewed by gym time
Books read, 2025: The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff. Starts in a McCarthyian mode, as a girl escapes the horrors of Jamestown and tries to survive in the back country. But gradually it becomes something more hallucinatory, more… cosmic. Full of wonders.
December 2, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Books read, 2025: The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff. Starts in a McCarthyian mode, as a girl escapes the horrors of Jamestown and tries to survive in the back country. But gradually it becomes something more hallucinatory, more… cosmic. Full of wonders.
"The more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask". RLS on not asking too many questions:
December 1, 2025 at 12:51 PM
"The more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask". RLS on not asking too many questions:
Books finally read in 2025: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson. I read my eldest's GCSE copy, alongside a beautiful reading by the reliable Rory Kinnear.
November 30, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Books finally read in 2025: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson. I read my eldest's GCSE copy, alongside a beautiful reading by the reliable Rory Kinnear.
Books read on one day in November in 2025, but not *that* day: On the Calculation of Volume, Solvej Balle. How can this slim novel in which nothing much keeps happening be so magical? First volume of *seven*! Can't wait to get back aboard the quotidian merry-go-round
November 28, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Books read on one day in November in 2025, but not *that* day: On the Calculation of Volume, Solvej Balle. How can this slim novel in which nothing much keeps happening be so magical? First volume of *seven*! Can't wait to get back aboard the quotidian merry-go-round
Books inhaled in 2025: Sparrow, James Hynes. From the time of the first Christians, to the arse end of pagan rule in a backwater of Empire, this is a brilliant but unflinching present-tense slave narrative about a boy raised by Wolves.
November 27, 2025 at 12:08 AM
Books inhaled in 2025: Sparrow, James Hynes. From the time of the first Christians, to the arse end of pagan rule in a backwater of Empire, this is a brilliant but unflinching present-tense slave narrative about a boy raised by Wolves.
Books immolated in 2025: Acts of the Assassins, Richard Beard. Gallio is on the trail of a master terrorist he was sure he’d seen die, and who is inspiring his followers to spectacular acts of self-slaughter. Clever ultimately moving thriller
November 25, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Books immolated in 2025: Acts of the Assassins, Richard Beard. Gallio is on the trail of a master terrorist he was sure he’d seen die, and who is inspiring his followers to spectacular acts of self-slaughter. Clever ultimately moving thriller
Books shivered through in 2025: Good and Evil and Other Stories, Samanta Schweblin. Short stories like depth charges; you finish one thinking OK, fine, sure, and then in the night dead clammy fish keep rising to the surface, wow what a bad metaphor, trust me she writes better than this.
November 21, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Books shivered through in 2025: Good and Evil and Other Stories, Samanta Schweblin. Short stories like depth charges; you finish one thinking OK, fine, sure, and then in the night dead clammy fish keep rising to the surface, wow what a bad metaphor, trust me she writes better than this.
Books read in 2025: The Devil Book, Asta Olivia Nordenhof. In hindsight the collected journalism of Owen Jones would have been more stimulating
November 20, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Books read in 2025: The Devil Book, Asta Olivia Nordenhof. In hindsight the collected journalism of Owen Jones would have been more stimulating
Books read in 2025: All The Devils Are Here, David Seabrook. Brilliant. Like a W.G. Sebald of the psychos and the losers, the fascists and the fantasists. Sample sentence: [of London:] "1964 was the year that the city really began to swing, really swing – like a pendulum over a pit"
November 17, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Books read in 2025: All The Devils Are Here, David Seabrook. Brilliant. Like a W.G. Sebald of the psychos and the losers, the fascists and the fantasists. Sample sentence: [of London:] "1964 was the year that the city really began to swing, really swing – like a pendulum over a pit"
Books read in 2025: Transcription, Kate Atkinson. More KA brilliance. It seems at first a rather cosy espionage novel - until the final sting is revealed. A reminder of the dictum, if at a loose end, reading-wise: read an Atkinson. (Recommend the brilliant audiobook narrated by Fenella Woolgar)
November 16, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Books read in 2025: Transcription, Kate Atkinson. More KA brilliance. It seems at first a rather cosy espionage novel - until the final sting is revealed. A reminder of the dictum, if at a loose end, reading-wise: read an Atkinson. (Recommend the brilliant audiobook narrated by Fenella Woolgar)
Books abandoned in 2025: Enlightenment, Sarah Perry. Could not finish. Lots of good writing, but the dialogue, the characters, the ‘villain’, all are tin-eared and false. Another book with a poorly-realised ghost.
November 12, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Books abandoned in 2025: Enlightenment, Sarah Perry. Could not finish. Lots of good writing, but the dialogue, the characters, the ‘villain’, all are tin-eared and false. Another book with a poorly-realised ghost.
Books drifted through in 2025: Orbital, Samantha Harvey. “The jumbled tumbling of static galactic woodwind rainforest trance of a wild and lilting world.”
November 8, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Books drifted through in 2025: Orbital, Samantha Harvey. “The jumbled tumbling of static galactic woodwind rainforest trance of a wild and lilting world.”
Books drained in 2025: Shadowplay, Joseph O'Connor. Loved this lush late-Victorian love triangle between Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Bram Stoker, whose struggles with the larger-than-life Irving give him the idea for a theatrical Wallachian count. Great walk on parts for O. Wilde and J. Ripper.
November 5, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Books drained in 2025: Shadowplay, Joseph O'Connor. Loved this lush late-Victorian love triangle between Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Bram Stoker, whose struggles with the larger-than-life Irving give him the idea for a theatrical Wallachian count. Great walk on parts for O. Wilde and J. Ripper.
Books read in 2025: Death of an Ordinary Man, Sarah Perry. The author's father-in-law dies with shocking rapidity. A report from the front line, stark and unsentimental and immensely affecting.
November 4, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Books read in 2025: Death of an Ordinary Man, Sarah Perry. The author's father-in-law dies with shocking rapidity. A report from the front line, stark and unsentimental and immensely affecting.
Books read in 2025: The Quickening Maze, Adam Foulds. Anything that gives me a hit of the same deep pleasure as the play Jerusalem is alright by me. And this is the real stuff: an intensely patterned shimmering novel of woodland, of seasons, of ritual and drink and mad old English poetry. Brilliant.
October 29, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Books read in 2025: The Quickening Maze, Adam Foulds. Anything that gives me a hit of the same deep pleasure as the play Jerusalem is alright by me. And this is the real stuff: an intensely patterned shimmering novel of woodland, of seasons, of ritual and drink and mad old English poetry. Brilliant.
Books read in 2025: Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry. Sad to take leave of Call and Newt and Lorrie and Clara. But the chief lesson: never disturb a nest of water moccasin.
October 28, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Books read in 2025: Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry. Sad to take leave of Call and Newt and Lorrie and Clara. But the chief lesson: never disturb a nest of water moccasin.
Books read in 2025: Late in the Day, Tessa Hadley. Flinty and interior and autumnal and easy to admire if hard to love. A prose without exclamation marks, a classic Hampstead literary novel if anything is. For good or ill.
October 21, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Books read in 2025: Late in the Day, Tessa Hadley. Flinty and interior and autumnal and easy to admire if hard to love. A prose without exclamation marks, a classic Hampstead literary novel if anything is. For good or ill.
Books read in 2025: The Green Road, Anne Enright. Another small masterpiece. a family saga told through a set of masterful short stories following the lives of damaged Irish siblings. Funny and horrifying.
October 18, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Books read in 2025: The Green Road, Anne Enright. Another small masterpiece. a family saga told through a set of masterful short stories following the lives of damaged Irish siblings. Funny and horrifying.
My other opinion about books is that this poem by Fiona Benson is magnificent. 'Haunted little veterans'!
October 14, 2025 at 10:44 AM
My other opinion about books is that this poem by Fiona Benson is magnificent. 'Haunted little veterans'!
My principal opinion about books as objects is you should read this book about books as objects
October 14, 2025 at 10:19 AM
My principal opinion about books as objects is you should read this book about books as objects
Books read in 2025: Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford. Increasingly of the opinion that Spufford is in my top tier of favourite writers. He just doesn't miss. Ritual Aztec murder; the Klan, tommy guns, alternate history, Reacher-esque violence, yeah it's all here.
October 14, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Books read in 2025: Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford. Increasingly of the opinion that Spufford is in my top tier of favourite writers. He just doesn't miss. Ritual Aztec murder; the Klan, tommy guns, alternate history, Reacher-esque violence, yeah it's all here.
Books I swam through in 2025: The Mountain in The Sea, Ray Nayler. Brilliant BioFi (?) about trying to understand AIs – alien intelligences, right here in the ocean.
October 11, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Books I swam through in 2025: The Mountain in The Sea, Ray Nayler. Brilliant BioFi (?) about trying to understand AIs – alien intelligences, right here in the ocean.
Books read in a suspended moment, 2025: Mothering Sunday, Graham Swift. Not sure why it took me so long to get round to this, since I've every other book of his. One fateful day, observed from the inside, and from decades into the future. Beautiful.
October 8, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Books read in a suspended moment, 2025: Mothering Sunday, Graham Swift. Not sure why it took me so long to get round to this, since I've every other book of his. One fateful day, observed from the inside, and from decades into the future. Beautiful.
Books shivered through in 2025: We Do Not Part, Han Kang. This novel is to snow as M John Harrison’s The Sunken Land… is to water. And if anything more powerful.
October 7, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Books shivered through in 2025: We Do Not Part, Han Kang. This novel is to snow as M John Harrison’s The Sunken Land… is to water. And if anything more powerful.