Looking Back At Batman #1

Batman and Robin swung into action (literally) in Detective Comics. Soon enough, they were starring in their own comic. It was 1940. A different, distant time. Yet the basics of The Bat were already firmly fixed in the canon. Batman #1 didn’t disappoint. Not only did it mark the return of the nefarious Dr. Hugo…

The Ryu Murakami Fan Club

Ryu Murakami is not Haruki Murakami. Not even close. Their books are filed together in bookshops, but that’s about as close as they’ll ever be in any way whatsoever. Ryu Murakami’s bleak tales of destructive youth in dystopian Japan are unlike any other books I’ve ever read. I’ve read a lot of books. His writing…

Banana Yoshimoto Is Good For You

When my mother took a nervous breakdown (her fourth in a week), she was prescribed a book by her GP. “Fuck reading the book,” she snarled. “I want Valium.” In theory, the NHS scheme of giving patients a list of books to make them feel better is a worthy thing to do. In practice, most…

Jupe, Pete, and Bob: Remembering The Three Investigators

I look back at the heroes of my distant past: The Three Investigators!

The Best Of 2018

2018 has been a odd year for pop culture. I feel like we’re stuck in stasis, waiting for something exciting to happen. But can the underground really throw up anything truly transgressive when there are a thousand blogs (like this one) waiting to find The Next Big Thing and hurl it upwards long before it…

Tracking Down Tracks!

Tracks was a British teen fiction imprint from the 80s/90s. An entire generation grew up with these books. So what happened to them?

Book Week Scotland 2018

Book Week Scotland is to authors what Christmas is to Santa Claus. We love it. If we're lucky, we get work during this week in November. For Book Week Scotland 2018 I ended up in Grangemouth Library, which isn't too far away from me - except the bus made it feel like a far-flung world.…