Click on one of the below to be taken to that section of my blog archive:
General blogs: cultural appropriation, virtue signalling
Great Indian Novels – 10 reviews
Inside India: 50 short articles covering India’s past, present and future
Blogs about crime and literary festivals
Blogs about literacy and libraries
General
Cultural Appropriation (part 1): why people need to get a grip
Cultural Appropriation (part 2): when authors crash and burn
Cultural Appropriation (part 3): when authors get it right
Virtue Signalling: what is it exactly and is it even real?
Chilled Monkey Brains and Snake Surprise: when popular films promote racial stereotypes
Race Reports, George Floyd, and John Grisham’s A Time to Kill
Inside India: 50 short articles covering India’s past, present and future
Inside India #1: The Indus Valley Civilisation – India’s oldest organised society
Inside India #2: Ashoka the Great – from mass murderer to Buddhist
Inside India #3: Marco Polo in India
Inside India #4: The Peacock Throne – seat of Mughal Emperors
Inside India #5: The Spice Jews of India
Inside India #6: Thug Life – India’s Thuggee cult, history’s most prolific serial killers
Inside India #7: Kashmir – paradise on Earth?
Inside India #8: The curse of the Koh-i-noor Diamond
Inside India #9: India’s greatest queens
Inside India #10: The $4m Gaitonde – India’s most expensive painting
Inside India #11: A brief history of Indian spices
Inside India #12: The handstand scorpion – how yoga became a global phenomenon
Inside India #13: The Queen in India… Gaffes, snubs, pageantry, and political intrigue
Inside India #14: India’s tea plantations and why there’s no such thing as chai tea
Inside India #15: India’s railways – nostalgia, bloodshed, and records
Inside India #16: India’s Freemasons – ritual, mystery, and Imperial legacy
Inside India #17: Simla – summer capital of the Raj
Inside India #18: Eating the dead – the Parsees of India
Inside India #19: Christian missionaries in India – churches, cartridges, and the clap
Inside India #20: The truth about the Black Hole of Calcutta
Inside India #21: The Bombay Dog Riots
Inside India #22: The Indian Mutiny – how a bullet cartridge ignited a rebellion
Inside India #24: Mumbai’s The Divine Comedy – the treasure for which Mussolini offered £1m
Inside India #25: The Indians who invented fingerprint classification
Inside India #26 – Red India: Communism on the subcontinent
Great Indian Novels
Great Indian Novels #1 – A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Great Indian Novels #2 – Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Great Indian Novels #3 – Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Great Indian Novels #4 – The White Tiger by Arvind Adiga
Great Indian Novels #5 – The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Great Indian Novels #6 – The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Great Indian Novels #7 – A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Great Indian Novels #8: – Sacred Games by Vikram Chanda
Great Indian Novels #9: – A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Great Indian Novels #10: – Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh
Blogs about how to improve your creative writing
When History brings time to a standstill…
Genesis: where do book ideas come from?
Overcoming writer’s block – the Holy Grail of Writerdom
Lessons from Harper Lee – how to write that all important second novel
Do writers need a special place to write
Blogs about crime festivals and literary festivals
Granite Noir – Aberdeen’s festival of firsts
A paean to Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Festival
Bradford Literature Festival – a unique cultural experience
Emirates Literary Festival Dubai – a desert extravaganza
How to make the most of World Book Day
New Year’s Resolutions for writers (or how not to be a dick at networking events)
Blogs about literacy, reading and libraries
Librarians – the real Guardians of the Galaxy
Indepdendent Bookshop Week – why buying local can make you happy
The joys and woes of the independent bookseller
