Emerging from the depths

Both Reivers and I have been absent from this blog for a while now. Frankly, there has just been too much to do to blog (see the previous post). There is still too much to do, but one or two things caught my eye recently that I thought I would share. 

Five years on

It would appear that On boundaries is five years old. Given my readiness to hide away for periods of time and Reivers’ general unwillingness to communicate through the medium of words, it is a small miracle that we have managed to keep this blog going for a reasonable length of time and contribute to a number of debates, albeit in a small and rather quiet fashion (at times very quiet). Some posts are good, some are not and some are downright rubbish. There are, I think, several pieces which are as relevant now as they were then so to speak, and I want to highlight my selection below.  Reivers is also compiling a list. His will be more amusing, I promise.

Contemplating a moorhen

I was walking along the river after lunch and decided to sit and watch the current for a while. As well as the usual mallard, geese various and a coot, there was a moorhen sitting in the middle of the river. At least I thought it was sitting. Closer inspection revealed it to be paddling furiously and going nowhere. Occasionally it would make a small movement forward to nibble some passing weed. As the weed drifted pass, the moorhen took its eyes off its direction of travel and suddenly found itself drifting backwards: more frantic paddling ensued. After a couple of minutes, it seemed to give up, turned round and drifted down stream until it got caught up in a fight between a Canada goose and a greylag goose. In effort to get away from its larger and more boisterous cousins, the moorhen made  much progress sideways, but none at all forwards. Undaunted it kept trying.

The moorhen was either very determined or very stupid. Still, it has the comfort of knowing that it can drift if necessary when the current is too strong being naturally bouyant. I on the other hand…

Negotiating the UL: in which Gesta fondly reminisces and describes a love affair with a library.

One of the few advantages of being paid part-time (though working full-time) is that I feel no obligation to be around on the days the university doesn’t pay me. To that end, aided and abetted, nay, encouraged even, by a Reivers who is on sabbatical, I escaped to my favourite library for three days, the UL in Cambridge. These three days were exciting, exhilarating and entirely necessary in all sorts of ways and enabled me to achieve far more in that time than I seem to get done in entire semesters here. So, a post in praise of the institution known as the UL with all its wonderful quirks.

A brief post

It’s been quiet on the blogging front lately. As usual, I was wildly optimistic in what I thought I could achieve between finishing teaching, the exams and the Leeds conference which starts on Monday. Apologies for the lack of heads up on what to look forward to at the latter, explanations of what I am talking about and the sundry other usual things I post at this time of year. Later today I am off to Lancaster for the latest Norman Edge symposium, followed by Leeds and familial visiting, so there will be much to write about later.

Writing book reviews

As promised in the comments to my last post, here are some thoughts on writing book reviews. It will probably be no surprise to regular readers of this blog to see that I agonise as much over writing a review as I do over the rest of my work and life. I am acutely conscious of how much effort goes into producing a book and dread discovering that the volume I have been sent is a real stinker. I want to write positive words about the work, acknowledge that the author has achieved something and highlight the potential interest to the readers of the journal for which I am writing. In other words, I review by looking for the good, rather than focusing on the bad. What follows are some thoughts from my own experiences.

Some thoughts on receiving book reviews

In 2007, my first book was published, just in time for the RAE circus. At the time, I was just glad to get rid of  it. I felt, at best, ambivalent to the work contained therein, and at worst, that it was all useless. At one level, I really didn’t care what people thought of it because it was my book and, in moments of clearer thinking, I thought I had achieved what I set out do do, at least in part. At a deeper level was the anxiety – what if someone really important totally pans it? What do I do?