the thing with feathers…

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Dylan Southern’s film, based on Max Porter’s book ’Grief Is The Thing With Feathers’ (which I’d read 9 years ago). The film is a lyrical exploration of love, loss and the strange ways we heal.
Following the death of his wife, a young father’s hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons (Benedict Cumberbatch is rather wonderful as the father). The two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother’s sudden death. Their father, a ‘scruffy romantic’, imagines a depressing future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow – antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter (and a little more sinister than I remember from the book?). This bird is somehow drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him.
A man-like crow, voiced by David Thewlis, is seemingly brought to life from the father’s work as an illustrator and is about to become a very real part of all of their lives, ultimately guiding them towards the new shape their family must take. The book was part-poetry, part-drama and part-essay on grief and I think the film very successfully captured the same emotions and gut-wrenching challenges.
It's a tough watch at times, but hauntingly powerful and very beautiful too. Excellent. 
Note: Being a lover of Sandy Denny/Fairport Convention, the closing sequence of the father scattering his wife’s ashes on a lonely beach to the strains of ‘Who Knows Where the Times Goes?’ seemed poignantly appropriate: “Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving. But how can they know, it's time for them to go? Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming, I have no thought of time…” .

november 2025 books…

Sculling (Sophie Dumont): I’ve been using this book of poetry by local writer Dumont as part of my early morning reflections. She trained as a canoe coach - her own coach and partner of three years died suddenly in an aquaplaning road accident… which led to five of his organs continuing in other people’s lives. So, this book is about love, death and rivers. I read the whole book out loud to myself each morning. I found it both beautiful and powerful. I loved it.
Once Upon A River (Diane Setterfield): This is our Bloke’s latest book (it’s a long one, 507 pages), published in 2018… On the evening of a winter solstice in the 19th century, “an ancient inn on the Thames, the regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open and in steps an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a child…”. The novel is an intricate web of mystery, folk lore, traditions, village pubs, river communities and the river itself. It has an enthralling storyline, with a complex inter-weaving of characters and their individual stories. I found it entirely captivating and read it in five days. Rather wonderful.
Standing in Gaps (Seamus O’Rourke): Somewhat ridiculously, I bought this book (online/second-hand, published in 2024) thinking it was a book of poetry (among other things, O’Rourke is a poet)… but, of course, I was wrong – it’s a memoir of his early days (up to when he was 17) living in rural Ireland during the 1960s-80s. It begins with his birth (I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember mine!) and carrying on through schooldays as an awkward outsider and his passion for Gaelic football before culminating in his late teens. It’s full of humour-filled observations as he talks about family, friends and local misfits. It’s not a book I would have particularly selected, but it proved to be a light-hearted travel companion on my recent train journeys.
Crooked Cross (Sally Carson): Oh, my goodness… I think this is probably my ‘book of the year’! I came across this novel (first published in 1934 and now re-published by those wonderful people at Persephone Books; 360 pages) thanks a recent article in the Guardian. Carson (1902-41), a young woman from Dorset living in Munich in the early 1930s, foresaw a dark and violent future for Europe and gave voice to those fears in her 1934 novel that is now being hailed as “an electrifying masterpiece”. The book is set over only six months – Christmas Eve 1932 to Midsummer’s Eve 1933. I’ve watched LOTS of documentaries on the rise of the Nazis/Nuremburg trials etc, so felt very familiar with the history and the background, but this novel paints a political and psychological portrait of a nation and, crucially, of a family. The Kluger parents are ‘stolidly ordinary’; they have three children – Helmy, then Lexa , then Enrich. Lexa is engaged to be married to Moritz. Moritz is a German and a Catholic… but he is also a Jew. Laura Freeman’s Preface sums things up perfectly: “This is a book that will stay with you. It is a book that asks what you would do if the world went crooked, if people you loved were persecuted, if the freedoms you believe inviolable were destroyed”. An utterly, utterly brilliant book.
Devotions (Mary Oliver): The book is a selection of Oliver’s poems written between 1963+2015. I love Oliver’s beautiful, simple observations of nature and life and I first read the book at the beginning of 2023 and have recently AGAIN (I know!) been using some of her poems – from ‘Thirst’ (2006) and ‘Red Bird’ (2008) – as part of my recent early morning reflections. Once again, it’s a reminder that we live a truly beautiful world which so many often take for granted.

october-november 2025 books…

Brutal Bristol I+II (Tom Benjamin): I bought these illustrated books at the excellent recent Brutal Bristol’ exhibition. As the title suggests, they focus on Bristol’s Brutalist buildings (note: Wikipedia describes Brutalism thus: “a style that emerged in the 1950s, characterized by a focus on raw, unfinished materials like concrete, block-like forms, and simple, geometric shapes” – although these books seem to have adopted a slightly wider definition). Public housing projects, car parks and churches predominate (and the quality varies); people clearly either love or hate them. Clifton Cathedral is the city’s undoubted star (in my eyes, anyway). The second volume includes a Brutal Bristol Walk Map (which is useful). The books provide a fascinating reminder of the city’s ‘brutal’ architectural heritage. My only slight frustration (and perhaps unsurprising, given that the books have been produced using details from a number of contributors) is the inconsistency of presentation, information and references… but, hey!
Where I Was From (Joan Didion): I love Didion’s writing (she died in 2021, aged 87) and have read a number of her books. Here (book first published in 2003), she examines her life, work and heritage/family history. Lots of interesting insights – especially about the growth and prosperity (and the poverty) of California… what the railway; the industry (McDonnell Douglas aviation etc); huge ranches (eg. 88,000 acres)… as well as incidental matters such as California having the highest rate of commitment for insanity than any other state in the nation (and some of the ridiculous reasons given for people being sent to asylums (eg. a woman who had begun “to act silly, lost interest in all things which interest women, could no longer crochet correctly as formerly, takes no interest in anything at present”!). But, overall, not one of my favourite Didion books (sometimes US history just doesn’t appeal!).
The Proof Of My Innocence (Jonathan Coe): I’ve become a great admirer of Coe’s books (I think this is the fifth book of his I’ve consumed)… and I read this one on Moira’s recommendation (she was absolutely right!). It’s a very clever, entertaining, complex, multi-layered, satirical whodunit-cum-political novel set during Liz Truss’s premiership (you remember her?). Somewhat typical of Coe, the novel is something of study of the-way-we-live-now underpinned by, in my case, a love of nostalgia. It starts in the present day (2022-24) and relates to the murder of an investigative journalist at a right-wing conference held in a crumbling stately home – with various links to former students and lecturers of a Cambridge College back in the 1980s. One of these former students has been investigating a radical think tank that’s been scheming to push the British government in an ever more extreme direction (including selling off the NHS). Like I said, it’s complicated (no spoilers!)… There are unexplained disappearances and a murder (of an editor with a dull-but-respectable history magazine and a larger commitment to his truth-telling political blog)… and, in due course, despite the efforts of a somewhat eccentric detective, it’s left to the daughter and adopted daughter of two former Cambridge students to try to solve the mysteries. I thought it was quite, quite brilliant.
The Garden Party (Katherine Mansfield): Picked up this book (first published in 1922) of 15 short stories at the Tyntesfield second-hand bookstore. Mansfield was born in New Zealand in 1888. She came to London to be educated; returned to Wellington, but couldn’t settle down and left again for Europe in 1908 (she died of tuberculosis in 1923). The stories explore themes of social class, identity, and the intricacies of human relationships, set against the backdrop of the changing world of the time. Some of the stories relate to affluent families and their interactions with the working-class individuals around them. Fascinating, subtle, sometimes funny and frequently poignant (without being compelling!).
On Reflection (Richard Holloway): I find Holloway a fascinating and wise writer and decided to use this book (a series of essays ‘Looking For Life’s Meaning’) in connection with my early reflection time. As you are probably aware, Holloway is the former Bishop of Edinburgh; he resigned in 2000 and is now regarded (as described in Wikipedia) as “one of the most outspoken and controversial figures in the church, having taken an agnostic worldview”. I have to say that his views on religion rather mirror those of my view (although I could never express them in his articulate way): “… my agnosticism is not a weak, vacillating neutrality, it is a commitment to staying in a place of passionate and curious uncertainty”. As ever, Holloway’s intellect makes me feel somewhat inadequate at times(!)… but I found his wise words incredibly helpful and thought-provoking.