i just returned from a great holiday, but even it wasn’t completely free of my ambivalence about holidays. I hate packing, I hate unpacking, I find it stressful choosing somewhere to stay, and I often wonder what I should be doing. (I don’t like having to answer what I did on a holiday, because I generally like to do not much at all. Not this frantic activity some require, see at least three sights a day.)

I liked discovering a kindred soul (besides my wife) in Lionel Shriver, who has outright hatred of the idea of a holiday. She writes excellently as always in her anti-holiday rant.

She has a new novel due out next month, which has already attracted some unfriendly reviews on goodreads.com. I wonder if it was people who had seen an advance copy, liars or confused readers. They didn’t sound like proper reviewers who I would bother sending an advance copy to.