Posted in Uncategorized, tagged an american childhood, annie dillard, pilgrim at tinker creek, pulitzer prize, the writing life, writer, writing on December 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Writing Life (1989)
Annie Dillard
Harper Perennial, 68 pages from 617pp
(Paired with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood)
The Writing Life, Annie Dillard’s commentary on the creative act, is a distinctive, deeply personal tract. A short piece – just 68 pages – it nevertheless manages to pack a wealth of detail, both biographical, philosophical and [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged crime and punishment, Dostoyevsky, kafka, patricia highsmith, ripley under ground, ripley under water, ripley's game, strangers on a train, the boy who followed ripley, vintage classic twins on December 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Ripley’s Game (1974)
Patricia Highsmith
Vintage, 256pp
Tom Ripley, anti-hero of numerous Patricia Highsmith novels, is rather playful in this, the third in the series. Asked by an old friend to find someone to commit “two simple murders”, Ripley settles on Jonathan Trevanny, a slowly dying picture framer, a Brit married to a French woman, Simone. Trevanny [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged caelum quirk, i know this much is true, she come undone, The Hour I First Believed, wally lamb on December 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Hour I First Believed (2008)
Wally Lamb
HarperCollins, 740pp
A few years ago now I read Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much Is True (1998), and found Lamb’s epic novel engrossing and fully formed. It has taken him a decade to finish his next novel, an equally long and epic story, of Caelum Quirk, of his [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chris cleave, incendiary, little bee, the other hand on December 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Other Hand
Chris Cleave
Sceptre, 355pp
I missed Chris Cleave’s first novel when it was published. He had the misfortune to write a novel concerned with a terrorist attack on London and have it come out the very day such an event occurred in reality. Incendiary was well received if little read. Cleave, a journalist, returned [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged evie, Hindoo Holiday, jr ackerley, peter parker, queenie, we think the world of you on December 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
We Think the World of You (1960)
J.R. Ackerley
Penguin Books, 158pp
What a delightful little novel this was! I expected little of the story of one man and the dog he cares for whilst his owner is serving time at a local prison, but with such a slim premise Ackerley managed to craft a story of [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged a mercy, beloved, love, toni morrison on December 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A Mercy (2008)
Toni Morrison
Chatto & Windus, 165pp
A Mercy is the new novel from Toni Morrison, though calling it a novel is a stretch, as it barely reaches 165 pages in large print and with lots of space on the page. But this is not a criticism, for anything new from Morrison is always a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aravind adiga, balram halwai, between the assassinations, Booker Prize, the white tiger on December 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The White Tiger (2008)
Aravind Adiga
Atlantic Books, 321pp
Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize in 2008 for his debut novel The White Tiger, a deconstruction of poverty in Post Colonial India.
Adiga, on the basis of this novel is a distinctive writer, destined for much success – already his second novel, Between the Assassinations [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged biting the apple, borderlines, james hamilton paterson, painting with water, poetry, scott rollins, The Naked Body in Between the Extremes of Water on December 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Painting with Water (1991)
By Scott Rollins
ADM International, 48pp
Painting with Water, a collection of poetry privately published by Scott Rollins for friends and associates of ADM International in the Netherlands, came across my path in a second-hand book store in Llandudno. Signed by the author with a message for its intended recipient, this collection turned [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged comedy, faber and faber, giving up smoking, jason strugnell, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, Miroslav Holub, nursery rhyme, poetry, Seamus Heaney, sylvia plath, waste land limericks, wendy cope on December 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (1986)
Wendy Cope
Faber & Faber 61pp
From a collection Faber & Faber deem “Poetry Essentials”.
My admission is that for years I avoided reading poetry. I could not understand the fascination with the form – I failed to appreciate its depth, the myriad shapes into which the poet could contort their verse. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Aeschylus, Oresteian Trilogy, Prometheus Bound, shelley, The Persians, The Suppliants and Seven Against Thebes on December 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Prometheus Bound (c.415 BCE )
Aeschylus
Penguin Classics (grouped with The Persians, The Suppliants and Seven Against Thebes), 160pp
This play, included with Aeschylus’s plays, is thought by modern scholarship to be of another author, perhaps earlier than Aeschylus. It is not as an affecting work as the other plays grouped with it and certainly not [...]
