Cal Flyn

Dec 17, 2024 | fivebooks.com | Cal Flyn

You’ve selected five of the funniest historical novels. It’s an interesting theme, because I don’t often associate historical fiction with comedy. Have I been missing a trick? If I’m honest, I don’t think you have been. Readers of historical fiction tend to prefer to be immersed in a world where heroes or heroines triumph over daunting odds the likes of which we can be grateful we no longer have to face, while comedy requires a more personal relationship with the author’s voice.

Dec 12, 2024 | fivebooks.com | Cal Flyn

Has 2024 been a good year for philosophy books? It’s been a good year in the sense that some very good books have been published, but it hasn’t been a golden year. There weren’t hundreds of outstanding philosophy books to choose between for the 2024 selection. I don’t know whether that’s a delayed effect of Covid, something that has happened to me as a critic of philosophy books, or if there is some other explanation. But that is certainly my impression.

Dec 1, 2024 | flipboard.com | Cal Flyn

NowA ceramicist in Mexico retraces his Maya roots to recreate a long-lost pre-Hispanic pigment for the first time in more than two centuries. Dzan, Mexico – Surrounded by dense jungle and beneath intertwining canopies of towering trees, Luis May Ku, 49, trudges ahead through shoulder-height bushes …

Nov 27, 2024 | msn.com | Cal Flyn

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Nov 27, 2024 | theguardian.com | Cal Flyn

After five years in Orkney, my partner and I have moved “sooth” – that is, to the Scottish mainland. There’s a lot to get used to, not least carrying our house keys again. But what has caught me by surprise is the sense of having rediscovered a whole season. I’d forgotten about autumn, you see. No trees up north. Or what few hardy souls brave the gales lose their foliage to the wind in a single afternoon.