The online journal of Jeremy Keith, an author and web developer living and working in Brighton, England.
Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey comes at just at the right time for me. I spent the last two years reading the Robert Fagles translation , finishing it just a few months ago. When I heard that Christopher Nolan was adapting Homer’s poem, I thought it made perfect sense. I really like the way that he plays around with flashbacks and narrative structure—something that The Odyssey is…
When I was immersed in the Irish language for a week in Donegal last month, I made plenty of mistakes. But there’s one mistake that I’m actually quite pleased I made. The emphasis at Oideas Gael is on conversational Irish, so our teacher would often put us into groups of around four people to discuss a particular topic. On one occasion, the topic was food. We had some starter questions to ask one…
I spent the last three weeks in the north of Ireland. Myself and Jessica flew to Belfast where we spent the first night. We managed to get to a session that evening where we were warmly welcomed. The next day we travelled to Donegal. A train from Belfast to Derry. A bus from Derry to Donegal Town. Finally another bus from Donegal Town to Glencolmcille, our home for the next week. Oideas Gael This…
I really liked Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls so when I saw a copy of Girls In Their Married Bliss for £1 in a local charity shop, I snapped it up even though it had the worst cover you could possibly imagine. This is the second and final sequel to The Country Girls which means I’ve skipped over the middle book, The Lonely Girl . I’ll have to rectify that. Once again the narrative centres on…
I absolutely loved Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, particularly the first book, Ancillary Justice which blew me away when I first read it. Since then I’ve enjoyed the other books she’s written in the same universe, dealing with the fallout of the events in the original series. Radiant Star is the latest addition to the canon. I think the story falls into the category of planetary romance ;…
At The Web You Want event in Amsterdam last month, Léonie gave an absolutely fantastic talk. You can now read the whole thing: Accessibility is resistance! She makes the very good point that generative tools are a necessary accessibility recourse when humans have failed to do their job properly. Images without alt text? Somebody messed up. But this is damage that can be routed around with large…
In preparation for my jaunt to a Greek island , I figured it would be good to have some Greek-adjacent reading material with me to peruse on the beach. So I scoured the shelves of my local library to find a modern retelling of a Greek myth that I hadn’t already read . That’s where I found Medea by Rosie Hewlett. The book attempts to rehabilitate—or at least give context to—one of the women of…
Exactly one year from now, UX London 2027 will be wrapping up. Mark your calendar: July 6th, 7th, and 8th, 2027. If you really want to be ahead of the curve, you can grab a very limited super early-bird ticket now before the price goes up. I’m about to start putting the 2027 line-up together. The real reason why I’m mentioning an event that’s still a year away is that I’d like you to consider…
“Radharc álainn” I said. Beautiful view. “Nach ea!” he replied. Isn’t it? He sounded surprised to be addressed in Irish. We were, after all, very far from Erin’s shores. The beautiful view in question was of the bay of Loggos on the Greek island of Paxos. But I knew that this person was a fluent Irish speaker. That’s why I figured he wouldn’t mind a chat as Gaeilge while we were both strolling…
The Vaster Wilds is a remarkable book. It somehow manages to be both harrowing and uplifting at the same time. I had read one of Lauren Groff’s previous books, Matrix , and liked it well enough. But The Vaster Wilds is in a different league. It starts with urgency, suffering, and wonder, and that combination never lets up for the whole book. The plot is decepetively simple. A servant girl escapes…