Here are the latest titles:

Orbital by Samantha Harvey – Sep-Oct 2024

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer – November/December 2024

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver – Jan 2025

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald – Feb/Mar 25

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Ackner – Apr-Jun 25

Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan – Jun-Jul 25

My Friends by Hisham Matar – Jul-Sep 25

Eurotrash by Christian Kracht – Sept-Oct 25

The Parade by Dave Eggers – Nov 25

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood – Dec/Jan 26

The Low Life by Alexander Baron – February-April 2026

The Loser by Thomas Bernhard – April-June 2026

The previous titles

Sometimes it’s useful to reflect on something through the lens of a metaphor.

“Illustration is a kind of acting”

When Quentin Blake draws he acts out the scenes in his head (and where he sits as he works). He said “ illustrating is like directing a play, except that you also get to design the scenery and play all the parts.”

The new Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration opened today behind Sadlers Wells in Islington.

Not a quote as such, although it is closely related to one. The attraction here is the slight verbal judo throw at the end, that little jolt of the unexpected which reframes your thinking and from which the humour is derived.

“A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine”

French gastronomist Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (1825)

It’s interesting that in this case the English translation reads better than the original French, due to the rhyming of “wine” and “sunshine”. The same is true of, for example, the Asterix comic books. By way of illustration, Asterix’s dog in French is “Idéfix” which means ‘obsession’. In English he is called “Dogmatix” which as well as capturing the notion of ‘obsessional, focused, determined’, contains the word “dog”. The idea that a translation can improve on the original is fascinating in itself.

“You are what you think about all day.”

Today I’m thinking about Allen Ginsberg all day. He was born 100 years ago today. So I’m thinking about poetry, Howl (which is up there with The Waste Land), my dad (because he looked like Allen), Jeff Goldblum because he looks like Allen (in The Big Chill), San Francisco, North Beach, Bob Dylan, On The Road, the Beats, the 60s in London. I’m thinking about working with openness and generosity – his distinctive approach. I’m thinking about the book I wrote 5/8s of on my sabbatical from Channel 4, inspired by that other AG. About the Subterranean Homesick Blues video shot behind the Savoy. He was in the background. Allen Ginsberg and his poetic, maddened world remain a huge inspiration.

Giving birth to children gives you a new lease of life or a rebirth, one reason why it’s such a precious experience. Travel is another experience which can enable you to see things fresh and anew.

“It’s very helpful to start with something that’s true. If you start with something that’s false, you’re always covering your tracks. Something simple and true, that has a lot of possibilities, is a nice way to begin.”

There’s nothing more dispiriting in art and creation than when you don’t really believe in what you’re doing. For example, when drawing or painting sometimes you just feel what you are doing is just a rough approximation or more technique than truthfulness.

“You don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.”

Many great creatives, designers and engineers learn their craft by taking stuff apart to see how they were made. It can be a good way into a project – find something similar and carefully dissect it to understand its structure and dynamics.

Useful things are expected. They convey nothing about who you are.

There’s something charming about things with no utilitarian purpose, especially when they are not strictly art.

“Meaning is conveyed by the things we do that are not in our own short-term self-interest – by the costs we incur and the risks we take.”

Things done not in our own short-term interests are always worth a look by others as they often indicate originality of thought, creative playfulness, altruism or longer-term strategic sense.

The Big 4 at Channel 4 (part of The Big Art Project multiplatform commission on public art) was a good example of this. It was intended to last for five years when it was erected in 2007. It quickly became a landmark as much as Richard Rogers iconic building. This ‘skinning’/iteration was designed by an art student using brollies from the London Underground Lost Property office.