Reading

“Commonwealth Short Stories”, part 2

This is a continuation from yesterday’s post, which was becoming too long! Today, I’m reviewing stories by Mordecai Richler, Lee Kok Liang, Wilson Harris, Frank Sargeson and Amos Tutuola. Mordecai Richler (Canada) – The Summer my Grandmother was Supposed to…
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“Commonwealth Short Stories”, Part 1

There are some excellent stories in here, from big names like V.S. Naipaul, Patrick White,  George Lamming, Chinua Achebe and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (although this book is so old he is credited as James Ngugi, his birth name which he…
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George Lamming on “The politics of reading”

While I was in Barbados over Christmas and New Year, I went to a literary event – the 12th annual award ceremony for the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment, on Saturday 9 January 2010. The keynote speaker was George Lamming, probably…
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“Gustave Flaubert” by Andrew Brown

This is not your standard biography. Translator Andrew Brown abandons the usual chronological approach in favour of an entertaining, thematic narrative that moves through Flaubert’s life by a kind of free association. The first chapter, for example, is on the…
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“The Paperchase” by Marcel Theroux

Damien March, a bored BBC journalist on the night shift, suddenly inherits a house on an island off the coast of Cape Cod from his long-lost uncle Patrick. There is a condition, however – he must preserve the house exactly…
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