reading

It Started with a “This”

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

This evening, while cycling home from work, a thought occurred to me. A slightly panicked thought. I recalled that in my post yesterday I’d linked to an article, and I thought…

 Did I include the link!? (Clearly my cycling thoughts aren’t as interesting as my running thoughts. I suppose I’m too focussed on the road)

You see, rather than write my post directly on my blog, as I usually do, yesterday I’d written it as a word document, as I wasn’t online at the time, and then copied it onto the blog later. And then of course I included all the links. Or did I? Because it would be very easy to forget to (spoiler alert: I didn’t). Before I got home and put my mind at ease, I felt a little annoyed. If I had forgotten it, how stupid would that look? It would be so obvious I’d forgotten the link, and it would be unfortunate for anyone reading it, as they’d miss out on what was a very interesting article. But then, another thought occurred to me: would that actually be so bad?

Continue reading →

This or That Book Tag!

Niall O'Donnell 4 Comments

I’ve been deeply honoured to have been given this tag by grevisangel73. I highly recommend her blog for some great poetic adventures. And thank you also to ayunda at teanandpaperbacks.com for creating the tag.

The Rules:

  • Mention the creator of the tag (Ayunda @ Tea and Paperbacks).
  • Thank the blogger who tagged you!
  • Choose one of the options, you don’t have to tell the reasons why you chose that but you can also do them if you want to.
  • Tag 10 other people to do this tag to spread the love!

The Questions: Continue reading →

Late-Night Thought: Words you Read but Never Say

Niall O'Donnell 6 Comments

We all have a store of words that we come across again and again as we read, but we never actually hear spoken. So we then either:

a)  have a moment of surprise when we hear it for the first time…

b) hear it spoken aloud, but never associate that sound with its spelling, thinking of them as two separate words (this was the case for me with the word epitome for a long time), or…

c) we go our whole lives never hearing them.

Here are some of the most common words people have this struggle with: Continue reading →

Hallowe’en Reads: House of Leaves

Niall O'Donnell 13 Comments

I love Hallowe’en, always have since I was a child. I loved the sense that the barrier between our reality and a mysterious, dangerous plane of existence might be opened for one night a year, and anything could happen. It was terrifying and exciting at the same time. And though now I don’t believe in the supernatural, I still love horror films and stories. So between now and Hallowe’en, I’ll share my thoughts on some of my favourite horror fiction.

I’ll start with House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000). Continue reading →