Marcus Hobson > Recent Status Updates

"Shelly smiled at me. When I was pregnant with William, he used to get on his knees as I sat on the edge of the bed and hold my stomach in his hands like a rare book he hadn't read."

Enjoying the Yorkshire dialect in words like "Thissen?" meaning 'yourself?'

Wow, the descriptions of the landscape take me straight back to childhood memories of Yorkshire. Powerful, bleak, beautiful.

Greville Texidor divorced her first husband after two weeks - turned out "he had the nasty habit if reading the newspapers at breakfast."

Love one of the lines in the first story. "After we'd finished eating we sat on round the table, knocking ash into empty eggshells and getting on each other's nerves."

I'm really enjoying this novel. I love the uncertainty of where it is set and when it takes place, they are not important to the skill of the writing.

Stunning stories to help us understand the sadest of tales - one of loss.

What a wonderfully interesting story, and how well written.

What an unlikely gem of a book. So many good stories and nicely cut into small digestible chunks.

Fascinating look at five New Zealand writers and artists who left in search of fame and fortune in Australia.

Jakob describes his future wife:
"This unsettled innocence was like iron filings to a magnate; she was everywhere on my heart, spiky and charged, itchy and there to stay."

I first read this many years ago, but Anne Michaels will be at the Auckland Writers festival this week, so time to remind myself how good this writing is.

I saw so many paintings by Munch when I visited Oslo last year. Now there is Munch and Knausgaard, what could be better.
Munch painted 1,700 works, but is only known for a handful.

I saw so many paintings by Munch when I visited Oslo last year. Now there is Munch and Knausgaard, what could be better.

Loving the stories about people who assembled vast book collections.

Always enjoy spending time in the real and imaginary city of Prague.

It took a couple of pages, and then it had me caught in the story.