Throwing a spotlight on humanity

There are two high street presences that cause my family to groan when I spy them.  The first is an estate agent's office.  If we're on holiday somewhere and I see a display of houses in a window, they're often halfway down the road before they realise I've become lost in an imaginary world of home ownership in our latest setting. The other establishment, which represents far greater peril to our timetable, is that most worthy of retailers, the bookseller.  If I slip through the door of a book shop, I may never be found. This is particularly true in Hay-on-Wye, where the density of book shops means that if they fail to spot which one I've sidled into, their searches are prolonged and often only end when I emerge with something to add to the library. The Japanese have a lovely word to describe this compulsion, Tsundoku, which loosely, is the phenomenon of allowing reading materials to pile up in a home.

Umberto Eco refers to this habit as an Antilibrary, and is purported to have over 50,000 books across his apartment in Milan and his vacation home.

While nowhere in Eco's league, I am guilty of serial book acquisition, with the caveat that I do intend to read the content of my little library. To aid in the process, I have developed a quirky system and accompanying spreadsheets. The image below is my active to be read pile.  Although it consists of 19 books, in my convoluted system, that represents a TBR pile of 38 - there are other sources, both physical and virtual, from where I choose the alternate volumes.

They are the unread novels that sit on the shelves at home (387), books that occupy a spreadsheet I compiled from a variety of top 100 lists in the UK, the US and France (277), and my Goodreads 'Want to Read' list (53). These numbers exclude the multiple volumes that I have loaded onto my Kindle in advance of Amazon's announced redundancy of its older models.

Most authors are prodigious readers. Consequently, the influence of others naturally seeps in to what we write.  Some of what I read informs my writing, not through plagiarism, but through imitation.  I can read a brilliant novel and discover that I have lost my 'voice' in the immediate aftermath and become a pastiche of another writer. Of course, when that other writer is brilliant, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's impossible to sustain for the time it takes to write a novel.  Invariably, I rediscover my writing style during the editing process, sadly casting away some lovely paragraphs that resemble the prose of someone else. If you've read my work, you'll know that I enjoy delving into the lives of my characters, most of whom are unremarkable on first blush, but on closer examination, have life experiences worth exploring.

It's the type of story I also like to read, and recently I finished The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri which left me in awe of her ability to capture the complexities of human nature in her storytelling. Her book is nothing short of extraordinary. It's both heart-breaking and up-lifting and if you wanted to gain a glimpse of what life must be like for genuine refugees, then I urge you to give her book a read.

Although a fiction, her book draws upon real life experiences, which serve as a reminder that many of those seeking to enter our country have endured horrific hardship.  While populists suggest that our country's woes lay at the feet of immigrants because it suits their purposes, it is worth remembering that behind many applications for asylum lie unimaginable tragedy and heart-breaking loss.  Lefteri's book gave me pause to think that we should perhaps be a little kinder to those who are hoping to join us for a better and safer life.

That's it from me. Cheerio for now Craig ======= Craig Brown is an author living in Newbury.  To follow his work visit craigbrownauthor.com Facebook/BlueSky/Threads/Instagram: @GOMinTraining Copyright © Craig Brown, 2026 28 May 2026

Why the words matter

In doing a little research for my latest book, I learnt a couple of new words: 'Triduum' and 'Allhallowtide'. I'm not suggesting that you don't know what they mean, but for the benefit of my self-importance and as a segue into what I'm planning to share, a triduum is a religious observance that lasts three days, and Allhallowtide is one such example, encompassing All Hallows' Eve (Halloween), All Hallows' Day (All Saints' Day) and All Souls' Day. All Souls' Day, which occurs on 2 November, is a day of prayer for the souls of the faithful departed and it's a day when I reflect on those that I have loved and lost.  It's a time of great comfort to me. It's not the only time of year that I pause to think about those that are no longer with us.  The anniversaries of my parents' and sister's deaths are dates that cause me to pause and be thankful for their time in my life. When my mother died in April 2004, I experienced a grief spiked with the guilt I felt at not being with her during the worst of her illness, arriving in New Zealand from our home in New Jersey, just a few hours before she passed.  As a mechanism for coping with her death, I poured myself onto the page, and over a period of ten days, I wrote a short memoir, Together Again. I cried during its genesis and not just the tears that wend down a cheek, drying before they've had a chance to fall.  No, at times I sobbed, thinking about the woman we'd lost, lamenting the joy that Nana could no longer gift to her grandchildren, wrestling with the knowledge that my sisters had borne the brunt of the helplessness as they watched our mother suffer. It was a cathartic exercise, but also an exorcism.  It provided a path to rid me of the worst of my grief, allowing me to move to that place where my mother's memory brought more smiles than tears. On completion, I intended to share it just with family and close friends, but such was their feedback, that I chose to publish it so that others might be able to find it and, hopefully, take some comfort from my words. While it is a celebration of my mother, it's a piece of writing layered in pathos.  It hurt to write, and whenever I return to it, it hurts to read, but every time I do, I come away comforted, feeling better than  before.  Perhaps that's because I pick it up in a time of need, knowing that my soul will receive a restorative. Given that it's an intensely personal piece, I'm not sure whether others will derive the benefit that I do from reading it, but if in a moment of darkness, it brings light to a reader somewhere, then its job is done. As such, the Kindle version will be freely available between 24 - 28 April 2026.  If you'd like a copy, click on the button below. I'm sorry that I can't make the paperback freely available too, but if you are able to read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts or read your reviews.

Together Again: A Momentary Memoir Being 9,000 miles from the ones you love can be tough. It is tougher still when one of them is dying. Together Again is the story of a brave woman's battle with a malignant disease and her family's struggle to help. Get it here

If you missed the window above or use a different eReader, it will also be available with this BookFunnel link during May. That's it from me, and thanks for your support. Craig

 

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Craig Brown is an author living in Newbury.  To follow his work visit craigbrownauthor.com

Facebook/BlueSky/Threads/Instagram: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2026
24 April 2026

What I discovered from ChatGPT

I want to begin by saying that not all AI is bad.  The promise it shows in medical research and diagnosis is, in my opinion, likely to be one of the great advances ours and future generations will see. Additionally, Mrs B and I have just returned from a fabulous two weeks in Spain where we visited Madrid, Granada, Córdoba, and Toledo - all glorious places to visit with exceptional architecture, extraordinary histories, and outstanding cuisine. To learn more about the best restaurants to visit, we turned to ChatGPT for advice.  It didn't disappoint, although by the end of our trip, we'd replaced the app with Le Chat as a quiet protest against OpenAI's bootlicking of Trump and Hegseth.

That's about it though for lauding AI. As a writer, I don't believe it has any place in literature.  I am contemptuous of those that use AI to produce manufactured slop, then promote and sell it on Amazon. While it enriches those 'authors', it fleeces readers and makes them intellectually poorer, although one of my favourite authors, Joe Hill, says it much better than me.

My view is largely influenced by a desire to see genuine writers succeed, but also by the torrent of emails that I receive offering to promote my book to bogus book clubs or with promises to aid its visibility on Goodreads or Amazon. Occasionally, I respond with something that would earn a rebuke from my mother, but most of the time, I simply drop said emails into a folder I've named 'Grifters'. This serves no purpose other than allowing me to tell people how many I've received. As of today, 134 have landed since the start of the year - that's nearly two opportunities I've spurned every day to tell an anonymous bot to do one.  Sure, I'd love to sell more books, but I'm unwilling to contribute to the coffers of a scammer in the misguided belief that they'll help me. It's not difficult to spot something generated by AI. My book, A Little Something To Hide', features an ensemble cast, each with an intriguing back story, told as a series of vignettes that focuses on the characters travelling on a coach from San Francisco to Albuquerque.  I've read all the reviews, and I see the same paragraphs time and again in the scamming emails that I receive. Having never used ChatGPT before our Spanish trip, when another of the said emails clattered into my inbox, I thought I'd take a look at what the AI engine had to say about my book.  Sure enough, it was almost word for word the content of the email.  However, what intrigued me most was the prompt at the bottom of the outline that asked if I'd like a summary that included spoilers.  Given that I'm familiar with what happened, I thought, 'Why not,' and OMG, it did not disappoint. There's a PDF that you can access by clicking on the image below, but if you'd prefer the TL;DR option, here it is - It's complete bollocks.

None of that happened.  Not even close. I mean, if you fancy it as a plot for a novel that you'd like to pen, nab away.  I certainly didn't write that and I have no intention of doing so, so fill your boots. Naturally enough, it prompted another question for ChatGPT.  I was polite.  'ChatGPT,' I asked.  'Are you fibbing?' Bless that little AI engine, but yes it was.  Here's what it had to say for itself ...

Yes — and thank you for asking directly. I need to be clear: I don’t have reliable evidence that a novel called A Little Something to Hide by Craig Brown exists*, and the detailed plot I gave you was not based on a verifiable real book. It was effectively a hallucinated summary/outline generated from the title and author name. I’m sorry about that — you were right to question it. ⸻ What likely happened There is a well-known British writer named Craig Brown (author of One Two Three Four, etc.)**, but as of my knowledge cutoff (2025-08) and current data, no confirmed novel with that title is associated with him in mainstream publishing records. So when you asked for a summary, I should have first checked whether the book exists or asked you to confirm details. ⸻ Can we fix it? If you’d like, you can tell me: • where you heard of the book, or • share a photo / excerpt / link and I’ll verify and give an accurate summary (or confirm if it’s a different author). Again — sorry for the confusion, and thanks for calling it out 👍

I didn't bother to opt for the proposed fixes.  Instead, I thought I'd leave ChatGPT to ponder its life choices and reflect on its failings. All that said, I do have a confession. I used AI to tinker with the cover for a proof of my next book, 'Dignity', which is inspired by the song of the same name by Deacon Blue***. You may already know that the book is about a binman who saves for a boat by collecting the deposit money from the empty bottles he finds on his rounds.

I asked one of the myriad AI engines to come up with a suitable image for the cover, prompting it with something like, 'Give me a sailboat in a bottle on a dirty street.' At first blush, it appears to deliver what I asked, but on closer inspection, you'll note that the bottle is half full of water and any intrepid sailors on the boat within will have to scale the mast to avoid drowning.

Other than for this missive, the image is for Brown household use only, a vanity if you like, to see what a finished copy of the book might look like, and to give Mrs B something to scribble on as she reviews the content. But it's yet another example of the shoddiness of creative AI and serves as a reminder of its failings. Be assured, when I publish 'Dignity', the cover will have been designed by a living, breathing, professional.  I can't in good conscience rail against the written form of AI slop if I then undermine the graphic design industry by adopting some tech trickery. All of which is to say, be discerning in your use of AI and perhaps a tad cynical with what it throws back at you.  It's a tricksy little monster and isn't always fond of the truth. That's it from me, cheerio for now. Craig

* I do, you can find it here. ** I hasten to add, this is not me. *** You can listen to Deacon Blue's 'Dignity' here.

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Craig Brown is an author living in Newbury.  To follow his work visit craigbrownauthor.com

Facebook/BlueSky/Threads/Instagram: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2026
11 March 2026

The great de-cluttering

One of my favourite times of the year is that interregnum between Christmas and the start of the New Year.  For me, it's usually a period of complete relaxation: unwinding with the remaining mince pies; whipping up a turkey curry; polishing off the last of the mulled wine; doing little by way of preparation for the year of work to come.

This year was a little different. For reasons unknown even to us, Mrs B and I decided that we wanted to prepare for the year ahead with 'The great de-cluttering.'

What that meant in practice, was a climb (or more accurately, multiple climbs) into the loft to clear out nearly twenty years' of accumulation.  Much has gone and I hope that someone, somewhere, will find something of use to them in a nearby 'Op shop'. We didn't, however, end the purge with the loft, migrating also to the study, where eons of files are housed that contain, amongst other things: my book of lovesick poems from 1986 (which I can assure you, will not be destroyed, but will never see the light of day); warranties for multiple appliances that expired sometime before 2006; tax returns compiled with the help of an abacus; and the astonishing amount of paperwork that goes into an incomplete application for a US green-card - with apologies to my American friends, we may have avoided a slip on the ICE there.

Our poor wee shredder is groaning with the workload and I still have around 90lbs (or 40kg for my metric mates) of paper to deal with. I offer an apology to the felled trees that supported the process.

In addition to the paper, I also determined that I would cull that which is invisibly stored; those records that sit on a hard drive or in the ether that accumulate with stealth. In this case, that also includes the books that I serialised for the launch of A Little Something To Hide. I have decided to 'unpublish' them, removing them from Amazon. I think the multiple volumes confuse people who are new to my work. That said, the full novel and its companion piece, Nothing Left To Hide, are still available, and between those two, you can find the combined content of the serialised volumes (in fact there's a tiny bit extra in NLTH that isn't available elsewhere). So if you're looking to complete the set, click on the 'Last chance' image below before 31 January to order the missing volumes, or if you're new to my work, a click on my future cult classic is the way to go. I hope you enjoy.

A cult classic in the making* Remember - never trust the person you’re sitting next to, no matter how sweet they look. What was he thinking? Read the novel and wondered what inspired the characters? Find out here. Last chance Missing one or more of the serialised versions? Get in quick - available until 31 Jan. Then poof - gone!

That's it from me for this month.  I'm off to continue my drafting of 'Remembering Rose'.  She's a troublesome girl and causing me all sorts of bother.  If only I'd managed to clear my head as well as we cleared the loft, I might know how to deal with her. Cheerio for now Craig

 * According to me ...

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Craig Brown is an author living in Newbury.  To follow his work visit craigbrownauthor.com

Facebook/BlueSky/Threads/Instagram: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2026
20 January 2026