Yes, it continues to be cold. The novelty of snow has long worn off. My sole source of weather-related amusement is the media who insist 60,000 people will die in the Big Freeze, the British Army is being set in and the beginning of food shortages lead to soaring prices. Yesterday night BBC News ran [...]
Posts tagged Literature
Work As If You Live in the Early Days of a Better Nation
I do not know how many of you have read Alasdair Gray’s excellent dystopian novel, Lanark: a Life in Four Books? It takes place partly in Glasgow and partly in an imaginary Glasgow, known as Unthank. In Unthank the characters are forever chasing sunlight whilst seemingly dying of a symbolic disease known as ‘dragonhide’ (Yes, [...]
The First Of Many: The Times’ Books of the Decade
Oh dear, we are going to be inundated with “The Best XYZ of This Decade!” lists, aren’t we? One of the first Best Books of the Decade list comes from the Times (thank you, kimfobo) and is an eclectic mix of high- and low-culture, fiction and non-fiction, and Anglophone and translated works. I am not [...]
Boredom Sets In
A brief link today pilfered from elsewhere: Hey, Oscar Wilde!. It is “a personal art collection of various artists interpreting their favourite literary figure/author/character”. I really like this Winnie the Pooh.
Health update: I managed to get dressed and head outside today. Okay, I went across the road to the local supermarket and I went straight [...]
Deja Vu
YouTube Comment or E.E.Cummings? One of the funniest 20th century poetry/21st Century internet crossovers I have seen today. Not that I have seen that many, of course.
After a few weeks of awe-inspiring knitting productivity, my busy fingers have become almost idle. I cast on, knit maybe twenty rows, decide the project doesn’t thrill me and [...]
Little Women & Werewolves
Yes, the classic “Little Women” has fallen prey to the publishing trend that started with “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”. Joy. I never read the Austen-goes-supernatural novel. I mean, I still have issues with casting Colin Firth as Darcy in that BBC mini-series, so imagine what issues I’d have suddenly encountering zombies in the midst [...]
Man Booker? It’s Me, Karie Rantypants.
Genre writers complain about chosen genre being ignored by the mainstream literary establishment.
Mainstream literary establishment responds by saying that genre fiction is never submitted to major literary awards by its publishers.
Genre writers sulk and go “at least we have plenty of readers unlike mainstream literary fiction”
Mainstream literary establishment snarls: “[genre fiction] is in a special [...]
Along the Canal
Alexander Trocchi’s novel, Young Adam, is an interesting little piece of Scottish beat literature, if rather uneven. It tells the story of Joe, a young disaffected man working and living on a barge boat travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The film adaptation, which stars Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton and Peter Mullan, is excellent and well-worth [...]
Why Neil Gaiman is Like a Toffee-Coated Banana
Want to feel jealous in a bookish manner? Go look at Neil Gaiman’s library. The colours, the layout, the view from the windows and the mind-boggling amount of books.. I hardly ever covet anybody else’s possessions but I do covet that room.
On the topic of Neil Gaiman, people tend to assume that he is one [...]
Music and Silence
Yesterday I picked up a friend from hospital and, whilst waiting, I began and finished Rose Tremain’s Music and Silence. Full disclosure: while I would rather see Denmark become a republic than remain a monarchy, I do have a favourite Danish king, King Christian IV, and Tremain’s novel is set in his court.
It is [...]
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