BLOG   ABOUT   MY-BOOKSHOP   ALL POSTS  SITEMAP  RSS  MORE 

John Baker's Blog

Reflections of a working writer and reader

It is part of the alchemy of books that the written word rewrites itself on the reader and that one thing becomes another as it passes through various states of change while remaining itself. Don't tell me that books are not mysterious - they are. Jeanette Winterson

Latest Posts

Deus Absconditus

It is a chintzy kind of place but I force myself to go in there from time to time because the coffee is good and they put together an almost fat-free breakfast. They have a painted pelmet which circles the room half a metre below the ceiling, where they line up sparklingly clean old teapots. The round, glass-topped wicker tables have gingham skirts and somehow conspire to make us talk in whispers. When we were children, Mum encouraged us to support lone traders who had a smile or anything approaching a deferential attitude.

I could feel the difference as soon as I walked into the place, though it looked the same. The teapots were still up there, squeaky clean; the décor, a faint pink blush to everything, had not been tampered with. But there was something in the air. (more…)

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my RSS feed

Must reads

Out Stealing Timber I
Looking to be understood?
A Writer’s Notebook I
(La Peste) The Plague by Albert Camus - a review
Saddest Books Revisited
The Glass Menagerie - a review
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Bhagdad Burning
Five things Feminism has done for me
Learning to Write I
Read extracts from my novels

Recent Comments