Well, that was a bit different. Don’t come to this book expecting plot, character development or anything like that. The main character, Serge, is like a conduit for signals from the radio that his father is experimenting with when he’s born and that he himself develops a fascination with as he gets older. He’s not [...]
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“Half Blood Blues” by Esi Edugyan
This book has it all: a compelling story, a great setting (black jazz musicians in Nazi Germany and occupied Paris), lyrical prose that perfectly captures the voice of the bass-player narrator, Baltimore-born Sid Griffiths, while also weaving in elements of the music it describes. It has jealousy, betrayal, a nice twist in the ending, and [...]
“The Flanders Road” by Claude Simon
Not an easy read, this. The style is experimental, with prose that mimics the way we think rather than the way we’d normally tell a story. So there’s a lot of jumping around from memory to memory by association rather than logic or chronology. The sentences are often long and winding, with digressions and then [...]
“Social Ecology and Communalism” by Murray Bookchin
This book is a good, short introduction to the ideas of Murray Bookchin. He draws on anarchist and socialist thought to come up with a model of social organisation that will be more fair not only to humans but also to the planet. Bookchin’s thesis is that capitalism has reached crisis point, both socially and [...]
“The Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes
I bought a signed copy at Highgate Bookshop, took it home and read it from cover to cover without stopping. That’s partly because it’s a short book (150 pages, with fairly large type and liberal use of white space) but also because it really drew me in and made me want to read more. The [...]
Lists
I love lists. So many books, so many thoughts and ideas condensed into a single, well-ordered list. I came across a good one over the summer, listing the top 105 works of 20th century Arabic literature. Wanted to link to it to remind myself where it is, and also because I thought it might be [...]
“Maybe This Time” by Alois Hotschnig
I found Maybe This Time a very unsettling collection of short stories. I mean that in a good way. Being unsettled is often the prelude to thinking about things in a new way, and to me that’s one of the most important functions of literature. The stories are very varied in style and content, but [...]
“The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion
“You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” This book has simple sentences like this scattered through it. They’re things you know, but forget. Your loved ones will die, so make the most of the time you have. I suppose I don’t like to look at members of my family and [...]
“The Generation Game” by Sophie Duffy
An interesting premise: the book starts with a woman in hospital talking to her newborn baby girl. She starts to tell the story of her life, beginning with her own birth in St Thomas’s Hospital in 1965 and going right up to the present day. “I’ll tell you my story. Our story. Because there’s nothing [...]
“Book of Clouds” by Chloe Aridjis
A very quiet, meditative book about a Mexican woman adrift in Berlin. Tatiana is alienated from her family and her friends, cut off from the rest of the city, uninterested in forming a relationship with anyone. She gets a part-time job doing transcription work for a historian, goes on a few lacklustre dates with a [...]
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“The Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes
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Introducing “A Virtual Love”, coming to a bookshop near you in Spring 2013
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Finding some inspiration
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Beauty is a sleeping cat
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“Half Blood Blues” by Esi Edugyan
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Great opportunity for unpublished UK writers
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How to write a book review
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How writers generate ideas
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The Sense of an Ending, explained
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How much would you pay for a short story?
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HeeKyung: I couldn't quite understand the ending until I re...
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Bruno D\'Itri: How Veronica really behaved towards Tony is up for...
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HPM: Why does Veronica behave so obstructively? Yes, i...
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Andrew Blackman: Yes, that would be good! I like contests with no g...
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Geosi: I wish it was extended to africans as well....lol!...
