Libre Paley's Blog: Libre Paley - Thoughts on Literary Erotica, page 8

Time off from the guilt trip

I am not on Instagram and am not, particularly, a reader of the tabloids or glossy magazines. But they pop up sometimes, on the newsfeed the photos. Selfies, smiling, pouting, the leisure wear cashmere and linen, make-up immaculate, of the celebrities and the not-so famous wannabes. Their captions self-mocking the artful disarray of their Continue reading Time off from the guilt trip

The fiction of ‘women’s fiction’

A recent article in the Times Literary Supplement, with a figure quoted from Helen Taylors book Why Women Read Fiction: The stories of our lives, noted that women account for 80 per cent of fiction sales in the UK, the US and Canada. Moreover, the item adds, women form the majority of audiences at literary Continue reading The fiction of womens fiction

Small world, big picture

With a minor irony, since living in a smaller world, I have been considering the value of the bigger picture. Wider understanding; contextual knowledge; sense of perspective, whatever you will. Personally, I am an avid consumer of the news in various media. And yet I am capable of worrying a minor detail to death. Worse, Continue reading Small world, big picture

Everything you need

One of the current frustrations of being housebound is the way the outdoors calls to us. Our daily walking allowance aside, our household is lucky to have a garden, modest and tiny though it is. In addition to weeding, weve stated small by sowing some peas to grow into pea-shoots and micro greens. The trees Continue reading Everything you need

Never too old

I loved author Ann Patchetts essay in The New York Times the other day, Why We Need Life-Changing Books Right Now1. Patchett talks about life changing reads, describing a time she went back to read a set of books intended for middle-graders (The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo), but finding the reading Continue reading Never too old

Extraordinary ordinary

Stuck in the house, I have tried to follow a common writing exercise attempting to re-see and then to describe ordinary objects. Make the ordinary extraordinary its become something of a cliché, hasnt it? But now circumstances has remanded us in our homes (around a third of the worlds population, or 2.6 billion Continue reading Extraordinary ordinary

Stay connected

Well. This is happening. How do you survive the confinement for weeks on end? French aerospace engineer, pilot, and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who spent six months in the International Space Station, has, for understandable reasons, been much quoted on his advice for how to manage. Aside from urging on us the essential Continue reading Stay connected

Once more around the block

Dame Jane Francis is a remarkable-sounding woman, Director of the British Antarctic Survey and Professor of Palaeoclimatology, she was on the radio the other day to discuss the topical subject of self isolation. In her work, she explained, she can spend weeks on research expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctic, in tents, sometimes with only Continue reading Once more around the block

March of the daffodils

It hasn’t rained today. At last. For days, weeks straight, it has rained – and sleeted, snowed, hailed, and we have seen floods up and down the country. Here too, in my own town, where people still are clearing up the ravages of several weeks ago. I cannot resist bringing in flowers at this time … Continue reading March of the daffodils

The double rabbet mitre joint

The title of this post does not describe a cross between a pair of bunnies and a bettong, nor a fur-lined bishop’s headdress, nor a sex toy, or a cunningly rolled spliff… No, as those who know something about joinery will already appreciate, a rabbet mitre is a type of joint or bond created by … Continue reading The double rabbet mitre joint