Reading for pleasure in the past year has been a bit of a struggle as I've come to the end of my PhD. I've found this is where audiobooks (🎧) really come into their own: Joan Didion's works read to me in the compassionate voice of Julianne Moore as I made morning coffee on a … Continue reading Every book I’ve read July 2025–September 2026
Driving along one of Norway's well maintained highways, the E6, one could be forgiven for missing them. But here and there are dotted brown signs pointing to 'helleristninger', or rock art or rock carvings - some estimated to date back as far as 9,000 years. I got to visit some of them on a road … Continue reading Hiding in plain sight: Norway’s Bronze Age rock art
It's been a long time since I've published my recent readings, so here goes. The biggest shift in my reading habits came in mid-2024, when I bought a Kindle after being recommended it by a couple of younger friends who are big readers. I thought about buying a different e-reader, but I didn't have the … Continue reading Every book I’ve read in 2023, 2024, and 2025 (so far)
Six months after I started reading Knausgård's Min Kamp (2009-2011), I have come to the end of my pilgrimage.
São Miguel island (Ilha da São Miguel) is the largest in the Azorean archipelago of nine, and is often the first stop for visitors as most flights go to Ponta Delgada, the capital and biggest city. Like the rest of the Azores, the weather in São Miguel is very unpredictable - truly four seasons in … Continue reading Activities in São Miguel, Azores even when the weather is bad (and some for good weather too)
Unquestionably my most memorable read this year has been the memoir, An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie (1981), which I came across when visiting my bookshop family at Shakespeare and Company in April. I bought a copy, then devoured the book while sitting on my green sofa back in Lisbon. The memoir follows an … Continue reading My year in books November 2021-2022
When we are children, we think about certain things with only with the strange combination of vagueness and vividness that characterises dreams - in colours and shapes that seem literally beyond reach. For me, this was the case with the great whales. At once totally otherworldly and eerily familiar, whales are laden with symbolism in … Continue reading (Baja) California dreaming, with whales and whale sharks
The region surrounding the grand port town of Cascais offers many superb day trips, including historic towns, natural scenery and, of course, Lisbon just half an hour away by train. As a relatively small country with high quality roads, Portugal can be explored quite easily by rental car, and good public transport links make it … Continue reading Seven fantastic and easy day trips from Cascais, Portugal
