With a view to reviews...

What joy the weekend brings with all the splendid essays that call for eager contemplation and which unfurls like a lengthy red carpet, from a blogroll of newspaper literary reviews in real life, its complimentary versions beaming online and stylish literary journals just out with fastidious aplomb.
In this vein, I've discovered the upmarket quarterly magazine called The Irish Book Review. It's nicely plumped-up with reviews settling on historical biographies and modern fiction, the short story, drama, interviews, literary criticism, essays, and reflections on poetry. I picked it up from the bookshop the day before and it's lying on my writing desk just now; this glorious autumn version just out for sale.
I'm also waiting for the London Review of Books magazine out next week after the holidays.
And how could a Saturday morning be complete without the chunky Guardian, Observer & The Times weekend newspapers.

Today, I picked up the Guardian from the shops with happy expectation after a long winter walk. It's very cold at the moment although the intrusive sun regaled us with a slight warmth early on. Still, the icy air promises a renewed spirit; it feels thoroughly clean and fresh and a good hardy walk is my idea of the perfect exercise after sitting at my laptop for hours. There are a fair bit of people cycling about on the wide tree-lined pavements with its scattering of dead leaves and quite often, the nosy dog on a long kind leash.
In the same way that I've learnt to love my street and suburb, I've just become drawn to the professional book review in a big way for reasons I currently fail to understand, myself.

At the moment, I'm not yet writing reviews with a serious fortitude. I am reading a lot to expand on ideas of critical thought and I also have another plan for my reviews, once I start to take them seriously.