The publication of Umberto Eco’s latest novel (in Italian), Il cimitero di Praga(The Cemetery of Prague), has created no small amount of controversy in Italy, thanks largely to very public criticisms voiced by the Vatican backed Osservatore Romano newspaper, and the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni . Eco, who made his literary debut […]
RT @books2pack You eat like four millstones! — The truth behind Camilleri's clichés http://bit.ly/cZvkwq # just got a copy of Roll Away the Reel World, James Joyce and Cinema – looks great! http://bit.ly/9uw8zd # Powered by Twitter Tools.
'Writing is what I am' – interview with booker shortlisted Damon Galgut http://bit.ly/dlzfAG # james wood on Emma Donoghue's booker shortlisted 'Room' – http://bit.ly/cYZ5B6 # logic is that the novel can lure Americans away from their media and entertainment buffet only by becoming more social http://bit.ly/aN5Jh4 # RT @samjordison Not the Booker prize: and the […]
is gangsta rap basically Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry, only with phat beatz instead of fat Geats? http://bit.ly/aHbUPS # RT @john_self "Every year, 70 readers die and two are replaced. The novel has no audience." – Philip Roth # Are Dublin's literary connections just accidents of birth? http://bit.ly/9EmfxR # Powered by Twitter Tools.
Reading through numerous reviews of Christos Tsiolkas’s novel The Slap helped me clarify why it’s such a particularly strong novel; not because they’re uniformly positive, but because almost all that I’ve read take a strong line on the book – I’ve yet to come across a review that didn’t engage wholeheartedly with the novel, which […]
Brand Ireland – Irish novelist ready to 'do the state some service' http://bit.ly/dygwZJ # Just read, and greatly enjoyed, the first chapter of 'The Frozen Rabbi' by Steve Stern – read it here http://bit.ly/cAJZPA # Great interview with David Grossman in the UK Observer – http://bit.ly/aZWNfl # José Saramago – an appreciation http://bit.ly/colWYx (please rt) […]
One of the many startling things about José Saramago was that he was an overtly political writer in a literary world in which being political does not pay. Remarkably, at the age of 85 he began a highly controversial blog and these occasional pieces, collected in The Notebook (Verso, 2010) – squibs, memoranda, appreciations of […]
I haven’t read more than three chapters of Steve Stern’s The Frozen Rabbi, but I’m moved to blog about it straight away for a couple of good reasons. First off, I just love the title, and the premise of the book. The novel starts with a fifteen year old boy rooting around in his family’s […]
Class in the novel – There is an un-American secret at the heart of American culture http://bit.ly/aQiWrh # Powered by Twitter Tools.