David Gray

David Gray is a British singer-songwriter  currently on tour in North America, where he has been playing his eclectic folk-rock and experimental repertoire at sold-out shows.

READING I recently read “Wolf Hall” by Hilary Mantel and the follow-up, “Bring Up the Bodies.” I had seen the BBC adaptation, and the books actually read like screenplays with lots of dialogue. For those who don’t know, both books are a wry and insightful peek into the court of Henry VIII at the time of his marriage to Anne Boleyn and the resultant break with Rome, all of it as seen through the eyes of Henry’s ruthless fixer, Thomas Cromwell. It’s not too difficult to find parallels with some of the political upheavals of our own time, where everything is up for grabs.

LISTENING Bill Callahan has been a massive part of my listening world the past few years. My favorite song of his at the moment is “The Breeze/My Baby Cries.” His voice — a low baritone with deadpan delivery — some people struggle with. His writing style has got this sense of humor and sense of absurdity, kind of like Leonard Cohen. But he’s a closer relative to Raymond Carver in some ways than to other contemporary singer-songwriters And I recently stumbled on “Cotton Eyed Joe” by Terry Callier, which is a thing of absolute beauty. When he starts to sing, his voice has this Nina Simone intensity to me. It’s got a fragility and hobbles around the notes. It’s just haunting.

WATCHING I watched a documentary called “HyperNormalisation” on the night of the U.S. election, by a British filmmaker called Adam Curtis. It doesn’t spend two hours plus justifying its ideas. It’s quite arty and just puts ideas out there. Mainly, it charts the rise of extremism but also the development of the internet and what has happened to us and the way we communicate. I followed that up with another film of his called “Bitter Lake,” which is an in-depth look into the nature of our ever-changing post-World War II world as seen through the prism of Afghanistan. All quite disturbing really.

FOLLOWING I don’t follow anything or anybody online; neither am I subscribed to any online magazines. I think I’m just too old and set in my ways for Twitter, etc. I still care about manners, spelling and punctuation, for Christ’s sake. Watching my kids and their intense relationship with the online world, I can see that it’s just a totally different mind-set; a different way of being even.

WALKING These days my favorite pastime is to just go for a walk and if it’s out in the wilds, then all the better. Recent trips have included the Isle of Skye, the North Cornish coast and the Lake District, all of which were spectacular. It’s about taking your time to traverse rather than just climb a mountain and come back down again. Sometimes you climb up a mountain and find a tiny little lake, a weird little ecosystem with its dragonflies buzzing around. You just spend some time in this strange, magical spot. Just to be, and soak it in, rather than conquer it and tick a box. That’s my approach.

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Kate Murphy is a journalist in Houston who writes frequently for The New York Times.