The multifarious ramblings of James Paxton Priestley. Most recent entry topmost. Header image credit: Edar from Pixabay.
Wednesday 20 August 2025
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Monday 14 July 2025
My currently reading pile: ‘Into the Dark: What darkness is and why it matters’ by Dr Jacqueline Yallop.
Into the Dark looks at darkness in all its forms, in science, literature, art, philosophy and history.
“Darkness captivates, baffles and appals us. It’s a shifty thing of many textures and many moods. It can be an absence and a presence, a solace and a threat, a beginning and an end.”
Icon Books. Paperback. ISBN: 978-1-83773-072-8.
Jacqueline is a Reader, Lecturer, and Student Supervisor within the Department of English and Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University in Wales, where I gained my BA(Hons) in Creative Writing and am currently working towards attainment of my MA in Creative Writing.
Monday 7 July, 2025
What I Have Been Reading | Am Reading Now:
The thought only struck me this morning that, as a writer, I also ought to share what I have been reading of late. I'm sure you'll agree that a writer cannot flourish unless they spend as much time, if not more so, on their reading—be that for research purposes or for entertainment alone.
Here, then, are the books I have read since 1st April 2025, in the order finished:
- The Island of Missing Trees, by Elif Shafak. ISBN: 9780241988725.
- To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. ISBN: 9781784870836.
- Lolly Willowes, by Sylvia Townsend Warner. ISBN: 9780241454886.
- WE, by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Translated by Clarence Brown). ISBN: 9780140185850.
- Ulysses, by James Joyce. ISBN: 9780141182803.
- Becoming Baba Yaga: Trickster, Feminist, and Witch of the Woods, by Kris Spisak. ISBN: 9781642970517.
- Dark Tales, by Shirley Jackson. ISBN: 9780241308493.
- Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. ISBN: 9780241436301.
Currently:
- Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson. ISBN: 9780099598183.
What are you reading right now?
Six from my mixed bag of reads since 1st April 2025.