Archive | December, 2008

Books not to miss in 2009

30 December 2008 · Reading · Comments { 1 }

I’m never sure how these lists get created. In any case, the Guardian has named it’s books not to miss in 2009. Odd phrasing – not books to read, but books not to miss. Like the best advertising, it suggests an urgency, a tremendous opportunity that could be missed if you’re not fast enough.  In any case, [...]

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“A Pale View of Hills” by Kazuo Ishiguro

28 December 2008 · Reading · Comments { 1 }

Most of this novel is memory: a woman thinking about her daughter’s suicide and remembering an earlier summer in post-War Nagasaki. Almost nothing happens in the present day. The whole story takes place in the past. And the story in the past is full of holes. At first this annoyed me but, the more I [...]

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“To have and have not” by Ernest Hemingway

19 December 2008 · Reading · Comments { 0 }

The original New York Times review in 1937 put it this way: Mr. Hemingway has been for some years an outstanding figure in American literature; he has influenced greatly men a little younger than himself, and they have paid him the tribute of imitation. Whatever he does is of interest because he has, unquestionably, a [...]

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"Three Stories" by Alan Bennett

5 December 2008 · Reading · Comments { 0 }

All three of these stories have a deeply satirical flavour, with dry, mostly successful humour and pointed observations on the various absurdities and hypocrisies we live by. “The Laying on of Hands” describes a memorial service for a masseur to the rich and famous, at which everyone (including the priest) is secretly worrying about whether [...]

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