Fiction | Not Designed to Juggle

On abandoning Blood Meridian

November 12, 2012 by Diane Becker

Have abandoned Blood Meridian on p285 of 353 – a pretty hefty investment of time in any book. So why have I stopped with only 60 pages to go? It is relentlessly bleak*. No, not like The Road. In The Road we get to travel with the kid and his dad, and yes it’s all a bit bleak and post-apocalyptic but, but … nothing really bad ever happens. Blood Meridian? Rewind 150 years, flip to the other side of The […]

Categories: Fiction, What I'm reading • Tags: Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction, Thoughts

Too Many Magpies by Elizabeth Baines

October 28, 2010 by Diane Becker

I finished Too Many Magpies in three bedtime reads (something I rarely do!). Mesmerised from start to finish. As a reader I identified with it to a (sometimes) uncomfortable degree – loved the prose and the way the elements and characters were mirrored/entwined. A unique experience, seldom read anything by a UK writer that has had so marked an effect! Read this and other reviews of Too Many Magpies here Latest news from Elizabeth Baines

Categories: Fiction, Reviews, What I'm reading • Tags: elizabeth baines, Fiction, review, salt publishing, Too Many Magpies, Too Many Magpies by Elizabeth Baines

This book will save your life

December 5, 2008 by Diane Becker

Slowly working my way through This Book Will Save Your Life by AM Homes. It’s the sort of book you want to savour, tasting it bit by bit and, OK – the sort of book I’d love to have written. Still, there’s a good review here if you want to check it out, but better still – read it! I’ve two books waiting for me when I finish this one: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by […]

Categories: Journal • Tags: am homes, bluechrome publishing, Fiction, haruki murakami, susan wicks, this book will save your life

Minus 4

November 30, 2008 by Diane Becker

NANO Excerpt II Outside the hoar frost ran the length of the washing line. Birds flitted from branch to branch and from fat ball to seeds to peanuts before flying across the garden and into the conifer tree. The weather forecast said it would be clear today and sunny but the freezing fog which had appeared last night hung about the garden mingling with the chimney smoke which drifted across the lawn. Orla unplugged the landline. She didn’t want to […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Fiction, nanowrimo, Photography, Writing

Running on Empty

November 27, 2008 by Diane Becker

This is a short unedited extract from my NANO novel Running on Empty. Another blue tit landed on the hawthorn branch then hopped onto the bag of black sunflower seeds, nodding this way and that. The robin dropped out of the lilac onto the terracotta tray that held the mixed seed and the sound of a train’s whistle startled them both and they flew off. Somewhere up the road a neighbour pushed his hover mower, taking advantage of the dry […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Fiction, nano, Work in Progress