Earl Lovelace at Bim Literary Festival

Trinidadian writer Earl Lovelace was the second attraction last night at Bim Literary Festival. For my report on the first part of the evening, with Austin Clarke, click here. Lovelace was asked about the themes of his writing and spoke…

Austin Clarke at Bim Literary Festival

After my unintended gatecrashing of a class with Derek Walcott earlier in the day, this was an event I was actually allowed to attend. It was an interview with two major Caribbean writers, Austin Clarke and Earl Lovelace, followed by…

The future of book talks

There was a time, way back in 2011, when a book event used to consist of an author standing in a dusty library or bookshop and droning on about himself and his work, followed by a book signing and a…

Congratulations, Julian Barnes!

So he won his Booker after all, the man who’s been shortlisted three times but never won before, and who once famously referred to the prize as “posh bingo”. To be honest I’m a bit sick of the Booker by…

New Booker rival announced

I was interested to see today that a new Literature Prize is being established, possibly from next year, with the intention to rival the Man Booker Prize. I wasn’t aware of the controversy about the Booker apparently prioritising readability over…

Why I like independent bookshops

You often hear people talking about supporting independent bookshops as if they’re some charity case. I don’t agree with this – they have real advantages. One of them really hit me recently when I was buying a book for my…

Booker longlist

Here are the 13 longlisted books for this year’s Man Booker Prize: Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape – Random House) Sebastian Barry On Canaan’s Side (Faber) Carol Birch Jamrach’s Menagerie (Canongate Books) Patrick deWitt The Sisters…