“Complicity” by Iain Banks
I was attracted by the political element of the story, and also the fact that parts of it are written in second person, an interesting idea that I am exploring at the moment in my own writing. Unfortunately I found…
“Identity” by Milan Kundera
Warning: this review gives away the ending. There’s something intensely dissatisfying about stories that end “but it was all a dream and then she woke up.” Logically, I suppose there shouldn’t be. We accept that a story is made up,…
“Pandora in the Congo” by Albert Sanchez Pinol
I got this as a reviewing freebie from LibraryThing, which was good because with its title and retro cover of cartoonish man emerging from jungle, I would probably never have picked it up in a bookshop. In fact, it turns…
“Miracles” by C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis sets out to prove by logical argument that miracles are possible. The clear-headed writing style helps to draw you in, he anticipates a lot of the criticisms people will have, and I just like the attempt to argue…
Edward Said – On Late Style
It’s good that Edward Said got far enough with the writing of this book to allow it to be published posthumously. It’s sad, though, that he was not able to finish it himself. The editors spliced together notes, lectures and…
“The Undiscovered Self” by Carl Jung
Writing in 1957, Jung is very concerned with the Cold War, Communism and the threat of nuclear disaster. However, his points seem very salient in 2008 as well. He is alarmed about ‘mass-mindedness’ — the reduction of individuals to anonymous,…
“Intimacy” by Hanif Kureishi
This was a strange book: all the reviews say how honest and uncompromising it is, and yet in the end I didn’t believe it. The basic plot is very simple. A man, Jay, is leaving his long-time partner, Susan, and…
The Shock Doctrine
New Left Review 48 carries an interesting review by Michael Hardt (co-author of “Empire”) of Naomi Klein’s new book The Shock Doctrine. Makes me want to read the book. Klein, according to Hardt, draws a parallel between the electric shock…