Books not to miss in 2009
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,…
“A Pale View of Hills” by Kazuo Ishiguro
Most of this novel is memory: a woman thinking about her daughter’s suicide and remembering an earlier summer in post-War Nagasaki. Almost…
"Three Stories" by Alan Bennett
All three of these stories have a deeply satirical flavour, with dry, mostly successful humour and pointed observations on the various absurdities…
Interesting thought
The human being may be no more real than is a cinematograph film. When the projected light is switched off all that…
Hakamada Iwao
In Japan, a prisoner on death row wakes up every morning not knowing if he will be executed that day. The prisoner…
Franco Moretti on the Novel
Read a very interesting piece by Franco Moretti in New Left Review, July/August 2008. It seems like a synopsis of a much longer, multi-volume work on the theory…
“Parecon: life after capitalism” by Michael Albert
This is not the most interesting book I have read lately, but it is one of the most important. It deals with…
Racial identification
Read a fascinating article in the Fall 2007 edition of the Du Bois Review. In an article “The New Latin Nation”, Alejandro…
Great speech
Worth staying up for. He used the example of a 106-year-old voter to go through a century of US history, touching on…