The latest addition to my website is Sergio de la Pava‘s A Naked Singularity. This made some best-off lists for the end of last year but not enough. The fact that it was self-published in 2008, is nearly 700 pages long and written by a US author of Colombian origin with an Italian name may … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Liam O’Flaherty‘s Land. It is another novel set against the background of Irish history, in this case the disputes between landlords and tenants in the late nineteenth century, which gave rise to the formation of the Land League. It tells the story of the local Fenian group in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Rodney Graham‘s The System of Landor’s Cottage. Rodney Graham is a Canadian artist who has experimented with manipulating found texts. He has taken existing works, such as Dr. No or Freud’s work on dreams, and added to them. In this case, he has written an entire novel from … Read more
My predictions for the Man Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize were, as predicted, wrong. I said I always got them wrong and I did. I must admit that I have never read Mo Yan, though I do own a few of his books. I am sure that he is a worthy choice and his … Read more
Peter Stothard, editor of the TLS and Chairman of this year’s Man Booker prize committee has said bloggers are detrimental to literature. John Self responds to Stothard much better than I can but I would still like to make a couple of points. Firstly, Stothard says There is a widespread sense in the UK, as … Read more
Right. As I said, I shall not write another post on the Man Booker Prize. Never again. Except for this one. And maybe another one. It’s like a disease. Or a drug. The Guardian has had two interesting articles on the Booker. The first, by Justine Jordan, congratulates the judges on favouring eccentricity and invention. … Read more
Having just returned from a holiday in Montenegro, I thought that I would take the opportunity to talk briefly about Montenegrin literature. But first a quick word about Montenegro and our holiday there. The photo at left shows the Gospa od Škrpjela (Our Lady of the Rocks), visible from our bedroom window in Perast. The … Read more
Hesperus Press publishes an interesting and quirky selection of writings, both fiction and non-fiction. They are now having an Uncover a Classic Competition which basically means they are asking the public to submit the name of an out-of-print book that should be brought back into print. Obviously the book must have been published in English … Read more