Stuart Aken's Blog, page 2
April 26, 2025
#ScenicSaturday 26th April 2025
Coastal Cornwall. I post these pictures of the natural beauty of our world to show how unique and irreplaceable it is. I’m simply presenting scenes I hope will please, and maybe inform, readers here.Links to items mentioned can be found at the end of the post.This one depicts part of the stunning coast of the …
April 7, 2025
Further Progress on the #WIP.
Writing a book. What does it mean? What does it entail? Fiction, in particular, engages or should engage all the senses. Otherwise, it’s a part story, an incomplete account, a limping, meandering path of words strung together without true feeling. But what does a writer attempt in a story? Does it have a purpose, or …
March 26, 2025
Timelines of Art, by DK: #BookReview
This sumptuously illustrated book of 400 pages of visual art and its history is an attempt to show the development of pictorial representation from the earliest daubes and scratches on the walls of caves all the way through to the more modern daubes and splashes that can apparently be counted as art. In between are …
March 19, 2025
Apparently, Today is ‘Awkward Moments Day’
I was introduced to this concept by Sassy Brit’s Alternative Read blog, via a new writing group I joined recently. The idea is to reveal your most awkward moment as a writer, share it, laugh about it. And, in this world full of misery and political strife, I say, ‘Why not?’ So, here goes. When …
March 14, 2025
Women In The Picture, by Catherine McCormack: #BookReview.
Subtitled ‘Women, Art and the Power of Looking’, this book entered my reading list as a resource for research for a novel I’m writing. It has filled that requirement far better than I ever imagined. The breadth and depth of research the author has conducted to compile this treatise on the misogyny and injustice dealt …
Continue reading Women In The Picture, by Catherine McCormack: #BookReview.
March 9, 2025
Further Progress on the #WIP.
It is a long time since I reported on my WIP. 19th January, to be precise.So, how’s it going? Inevitably, a touch of illness, advancing years, the state of the world since the orange clown was placed in a position of power way beyond his capacity, the frequent disappointments of a supposedly socialist UK government …
February 10, 2025
A Fork in the Road: Short Story
This short story appeared in a charity anthology, ‘Wrong’ to benefit Creative Writing Institute that sponsors cancer patients in writing courses. The theme was ‘I have a list and a map. What could possibly go wrong?’You’ll find a link to the book at the end of the story. A Fork in the Road Lauren tapped …
February 6, 2025
The Years, by Annie Ernaux: #BookReview.
Translated from the original French, by Alison L. Strayer, with remarkable insight and understanding of the original text, this ‘autobiography’ is an extraordinary piece of work. I use quotes around ‘autobiography’ because this book is so much more than that. It’s a brilliant mix of life story, history, sociology, philosophy, meditation, and poetry. Although some …
January 19, 2025
Further Progress on the #WIP
It surely can’t be this long since I reported on my WIP, can it? But it appears my last post was way back on 23rd November 2024. How can that be? Well, I’ve some excuses. It’s possible some of you may consider them reasons, which would be better for my conscience. First excuse: I’m suffering …
January 6, 2025
Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan #BookReview.
This condensation of an extensive theme into something far more concentrated, selective, and relevant manages to say everything it means in ways both accessible and moving. The appalling Irish Magdalen laundry system, imposed on the country by a church made far more powerful than it ever deserved by indoctrination and the spread of superstitious fear …
Continue reading Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan #BookReview.
