John Baker’s Blog

Everything depended upon things being served up to the precise moment they were ready. The beef, the bayleaf, and the wine - all must be done to a turn. To keep it waiting was out of the question.
Boeuf en daube is Mildred’s masterpiece. Mrs. Ramsay’s maid spends three days preparing the dish for the [...]

Novelists do not write into a void. They require an answering response, an audience of readers outside their family circle, and they also need the approval that professional publication brings. Next week, next year; surely she would hear soon. This hope must have remained with her, but the impulse to produce more novels withered.
It might [...]

We were at Hermione Lee’s lecture at York University last evening. She began by quoting Virginia Woolf on memory:
That is, I suppose, that my memory supplies what I had forgotten, so it seems as if it were happening independently, though I am really making it happen. In certain favourable moods, memories - what one has [...]

1. Why do you blog?
I blog to weigh in on what I’m reading; to perform finger-exercises for writing and explore possible future topics; to feel connected to a literary world even when I’m a bit housebound with two small children.
2. Which author and/or book has most influenced you?
Even though I didn’t read Virginia Woolf until [...]