Category Archives: Writing & Reading

Pliny

Posted on 27 February 2021 by Henry Gee

Pliny the Elder, yes, that’s the one, the author of Natural History, which got a very poor review on Goodreads at the time, one reader castigating the author as ‘that voluminous, industrious, unphilosophical, gullible, unsystematic old gossip’, who nevertheless died … Continue reading →

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Scrabbungulate

Posted on 30 January 2021 by Henry Gee

I’m not sure whether either of you know that I am rather fond of Scrabble. I can be found haunting the Internet Scrabble Club under the name of zedwave, (playing Scrabble online with people you know only as nicknames is, … Continue reading →

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Clichécollisional

Posted on 14 January 2021 by Henry Gee

Headline for this story, from the Daily Telegraph‘s landing page: BORIS JOHNSON PLEDGES TO RAMP UP VACCINATION ROLL OUT The italics are mine. Perhaps I am just unusually literal-minded, or oversensitive to cliché but this seems to mix metaphors such … Continue reading →

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Bhooq

Posted on 12 January 2021 by Henry Gee

As I am sure you both know, I have been hard at work on a book. Refractory ‘t’s have yet to be crossed and the final recalcitrant ‘i’s dotted, but time waits for no-one, and as the remorseless schedules of … Continue reading →

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Squintlepiece

Posted on 31 December 2020 by Henry Gee

The Turkey City Lexicon is a document from the SF Writers of America that offers advice to would-be authors of science fiction, pointing out the pitfalls that snare the unwary novice. A problem peculiar to SF is striking a balance … Continue reading →

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AdHederance

Posted on 27 December 2020 by Henry Gee

Over the festive period I’ve been ploughing through a volume of some vastness entitled 65 Great Tales of the Supernatural (ed. Mary Danby). I bought this grimoire secondhand a long time ago. It contains many well-anthologised old chestnuts such as … Continue reading →

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Litreview

Posted on 20 December 2020 by Henry Gee

Yes, it’s that time again, when I list the books in the year just passed that I have most enjoyed. I’ve been doing this since 2014. That’s when I started noting authors and titles of books I’d read in a … Continue reading →

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Naturistical

Posted on 14 December 2020 by Henry Gee

Thirty-three years ago today Sgt Pepper taught the band to play I started work at Nature. I joined as a junior news reporter on a three-month contract. It’s the longest three-month contract anyone has ever had. Because I am a … Continue reading →

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Expectation

Posted on 22 November 2020 by Henry Gee

I’ve been writing books since my twenties. In fact, I have been working on one book or another almost constantly since I finished my first — which was my doctorate thesis, resting unread in a dusty vault in Cambridge. Notwithstanding … Continue reading →

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Doings

Posted on 18 November 2020 by Henry Gee

What have I been up to these past six years? Well, some of it can be found in the archived posts below. For those disinclined to delve, I shall attempt a succinct summary. But how does one even start to … Continue reading →

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