Nothing to write home about
I am privileged to work on some very international and interdisciplinary journals. This has brought me into correspondence with a wide range of authors from different academic and geographic backgrounds. Every academic discipline has its own language, even when it is all conducted in English (or any other language). There are specialised vocabularies such that a… Continue reading Academic writing, disciplines and difference
Moving into my first house last year brought lots of new lessons in home ownership but also in gardening. I had insisted that my next home had to be a house, with a garden, but probably underestimated both the care and reward involved, in that order. On moving in, the small front and back… Continue reading Gardening (and reading about gardening)
[The long summer holiday is a time when many expatriates are on the move, in line with the school year. This post originally appeared over at Your Expat Child but I'm re-posting it here ahead of the moving season.] Having successfully moved a family abroad, the idea of the return journey can seem like a… Continue reading Repatriation and the reality of going home
I finished reading Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall on the day the UK’s Public Lending Right revealed figures to show that its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, was the 8th most borrowed library book in the country in 2013. Apparently this is the first Man Booker Prize-winning book to feature in the top ten and… Continue reading Book review: Wolf Hall
I was lucky enough to go along to the book launch for Naomi Wood’s (@NaomiWoodBooks) second book, Mrs. Hemingway. The British Library venue was buzzing with happy authors, publishing folk, family and friends. In her speech, Wood’s editor, Francesca Main (@FrancescaMain, Picador), introduced the author as 'Hemingway's fifth wife'. Wood then read movingly not from… Continue reading Book review: Mrs. Hemingway
Towards the end of last year I went on a wonderful three-week holiday to Australia. It is one of my favourite places, if it is fair to think of it as one place – in three weeks I saw just a tiny fraction of it on this visit. My parents lived in Melbourne for a… Continue reading Mini-returns and unfamiliar ‘homes’
The worldwide release of The Rosie Project caught my eye a long time before I saw it advertised on posters at tube stations. The title on its own conjured an English-country garden image of spring flowers in muted purples and yellows, so the bright, abstract cover in red, white, black and green caught my eye… Continue reading Book review: The Rosie Project
My few 'regular' readers might have noticed that I have not posted anything on here for a long time (if indeed they have not completely lost interest!). The Autumn of 2013 produced two unexpected challenges to my new found love of cycling, the subject of my previous posts (on commuting and on bike personalities). The… Continue reading Stolen bicycles and homeliness
I have never been big on anthropomorphising things - attributing objects or other animals with human qualities has never had that much appeal to me. My transportation devices, however, seem to be different. My cars gain names, even ones hired on holiday, and usually not names you would want to give to a person (a… Continue reading Transport with personality
I have posted before about some sights from my London commute via train and tube (both people and places). Despite these positives takes, I have never been much of a fan of my journey to and from work. I have become a much bigger user of mobile technologies and e-reading to make the time productive… Continue reading Work-life balance and commuting by bike
Madeleine Hatfield 