Tag Archives | Reading

American vs. British readers

10 September 2009 · Literary events, Reading · Comments { 3 }

Some interesting analysis of US and UK reading habits, courtesy of the summer edition of The Author magazine: American readers prefer romance; British ones prefer literary fiction Men make 35% of book purchases in the US; 42% in the UK In both countries, two-thirds of books are bought by people over the age of 42 [...]

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Google Me Stupid

21 July 2009 · Reading · Comments { 3 }

Just read a great article by Rita Carter in the Spring edition of The Author. It’s not available online, but it makes reference to, and explores many of the same issues as, this Atlantic article by Nicholas Carr. The basic issue, hinted at in the title: reading on the internet is different from reading a [...]

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Read more often than you write

12 April 2009 · Reading · Comments { 1 }

Came across some good back-to-basics writing advice over on How Publishing Really Works. The bottom line: Just write every day, and read more often than you write, and your writing will improve. I am a keen reader, but sometimes when faced with the competing pressures of finishing a manuscript, paying the rent and occasionally having [...]

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On not knowing very much about anything

20 February 2009 · Literary events · Comments { 2 }

Even Tolstoy and Goethe and Proust must have had the odd moment when they wondered if they really knew what they were talking about. Somehow I find that heartening.

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“Amsterdam” by Ian McEwan

19 February 2009 · Reading · Comments { 0 }

This was a good, quick read. An interesting story that explores several moral issues such as euthanasia and privacy rights. Another theme is the yearning for greatness and the sacrifices involved, often in vain. For example, Clive is a famous composer trying to create a “Millennial Symphony” and struggling with the pressure. He feels on [...]

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“An Artist of the Floating World” by Kazuo Ishiguro

14 February 2009 · Reading · Comments { 1 }

An elderly, celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, is living in retirement in Japan just after the end of World War Two. His daughter is having trouble in her marriage negotiations for reasons he can’t understand: gradually he realises it’s because he is associated with the rise of Japanese militarism in the 1930s, a period now discredited [...]

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“The Question of Bruno” by Aleksandar Hemon

11 February 2009 · Reading · Comments { 0 }

The writing grabbed me from page one: there is a real rhythm to it, and the description is beautiful. The first story in the collection is the sort of “lazy childhood summer holiday” tale that you expect to be idyllic, until the writer throws in really gruesome details, like a dog killing a mongoose, dead [...]

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Americans in the gulag

13 January 2009 · Reading · Comments { 0 }

Just caught a fascinating piece in the Times Literary Supplement about the thousands of Americans who, either out of idealism or to escape the Great Depression, moved to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Many of them were then swept up in Stalin’s purges and ended up in the gulag system. It’s a piece of [...]

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