Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Balzac and His World, blur, country house, Derek Coltman, Ellen Marriage, Eugénie Grandet, Felicien Marceau, french society, Herbert Hunt, Honoré de Balzac, La Comédie Humaine, La Cousin Bette, La Peau de Chagrin, masterpieces of french literature, Raphaël de Valentin, The Wild Ass’s Skin, translation on January 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
La Peau de Chagrin (The Wild Ass’s Skin) (1831)
Honoré de Balzac
Penguin Classics, 288pp
Literature in translation provides interesting reading experiences. I first read Honoré de Balzac’s La Peau de Chagrin in a translation by Herbert Hunt (which is the Penguin Classics translation) and over Christmas 2008 read it again in a translation by Ellen Marriage [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged danny wallace, ebury press, jim carrey, nonfiction, roberto bolano, yes man, zooey deschanel on January 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Yes Man (2005)
Danny Wallace
Ebury Press, 419pp
Okay. So I was travelling back from Norwich to North Wales, facing a six hour train journey, still tired, not ready to face Roberto Bolano, and from within the shop window I saw a copy of Danny Wallace’s Yes Man. The night before, with an evening to kill in [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 100 best english language novels, a death in the family, african queen, david mcdowell, james agee, knoxville, night of the hunter, pulitzer prize, time magazine on January 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A Death in the Family (1956)
James Agee
Penguin Modern Classics, 336pp
James Agee, screenwriter of The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter, was a prolific film critic and sometime novelist. A Death in the Family, published after his early death of a heart attack at the age of forty-five, would earn him the Pulitzer [...]
