Max Magee at The Millions, in a post eagerly anticipating three new releases, points me to The Ask, described by one review as ‘brilliant bile,’ by an author new to me, Sam Lipsyte. Literary savagery is just what this reader is looking for.
Also posted in Literary Fiction |
Last week’s reading:
My first Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs, is a refreshing revelation. Moore’s highly individualistic writing style, all quirky similes and metaphors, laced with lyricism, is nothing like what I tend to read. As with other stylistic writers like Cormac McCarthy, I found the going slow because I needed to roll the [...]
Last week’s reading:
Parrot and Olivier in America is Peter Carey at his most exuberant, wild almost. Recounting the fictional tale of the trip to the new, troubling democratic nation of the United States of America by French nobleman Olivier-Jean-Baptist de Clarel de Barfleur and an artistic servant thrust upon him, John ‘Parrot’ Larrit. Carey succeeds marvellously in retelling [...]
Last week’s reading:
‘What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?’: Jimmy Carter, America’s ‘Malaise,’ and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country is an intriguing single-topic book by Kevin Mattson, an Ohio historian. He tells the story of the critical speech given by Carter on July 15, 1979, covering the energy crisis causing [...]
Three films over the last year captured my heart because, I belatedly recognized, they’re set in the 1960s music scene. Make no mistake, The Boat that Rocked, Taking Woodstock, and Nowhere Boy are all superbly crafted movies, but what tugged at my emotions was their overt affection for the period. Nostalgia had struck me!
Nostalgia is [...]
Also posted in Film, Rock Music |
Last week’s reading:
Robert Harris’s Lustrum is the second of two novels recounting the life of Roman philosopher/orator/lawyer/politician Cicero. Harris can write smoothly and entertainingly about any subject, modern or ancient, Lustrum being a good example. It’s an enjoyable and intriguing read, although the five-year period covered by this book is telescoped at the end, at [...]
It hadn’t struck me until I posted on my Best rock albums of 2009 – I’m losing touch with new music! I did my best but consider the artists I enjoyed:
Idlewild, Jason Lytle, John Wesley Harding, Paul Dempsey, Grant-Lee Phillips, Conor Oberst and M. Ward have been around for yonks
Others – Peter Hammill and Mark Olson [...]
Also posted in Rock Music |
I’m a geek who is fascinated by geeks, their ascending (I believe, though many would dispute this) role in the modern world, and whether geeks are ‘better’ moral beings than non geeks (call them jocks, if you like). The topic of geeks is not one easy to pursue tangentially, so not much thinking has occurred [...]
Also posted in Nonfiction |
Last year, for the first time, I challenged my book club members to read Roberto Bolano’s 2666, way outside our customary range of size and ‘literary’ nature. Four of us took six months, much longer than anticipated, to master the book. Our discussion, over a red-wine-soaked dinner, proved to be scintillating.
As to why take the [...]
Also posted in Literary Fiction |
On November 5, on her radio show, Ramona Koval interviewed Peter Temple, author of the scorching, wonderfully written Truth. I found it most revealing of the man, increasing my admiration even further. Here’s the podcast.
Also posted in Crime Fiction |