-
Juliet, Naked is a mash-up of my favourite Nick Hornby novels, covering the music scene like High Fidelity and exploring the relationship between kids and grownups like About A Boy. So, yes, it’s entertaining. Probably, it would be even better as a movie. There are enough sweet and funny moments in this story about celebrity
-
Richard Russo’s That Old Cape Magic is one of the most heartwarming novels I have read this year. As a story of American academic life, it is far more enjoyable than Zadie Smith’s On Beauty. The protagonist, Jack Griffin, is a middle-aged former Hollywood scriptwriter who has become an academic like his parents —- two
-
Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has written a new Twelve Days Of Christmas for Radio Times. It’s all about current affairs, touching on Afghanistan, the drought in sub-Saharan Africa, the financial crisis, the election of Barack Obama, the British MPs’ expenses scandal, and the Copenhagen climate summit. This is how the poem goes: 1 ON
-
There’s nothing arty farty about Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. The 2009 Booker Prize winner is solid entertainment for anyone who loves a good story. Set in the reign of Henry VIII, it charts the rise of Thomas Cromwell, a blacksmith’s son who becomes the king’s most trusted adviser and the most powerful man in the
-
Love — wanton, all-consuming, passionate love — is the theme of Lawrence Durrell’s classic romantic novel, Justine, set in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Two couples are inexorably drawn to each other in a romantic entanglement that ends in death and separation and the birth
-
Security is important and we will make sure we do our best to have a safe and uneventful meeting, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said when asked if he expected any disruptions during the upcoming Apec meeting. Unlike the IMF/World Bank meeting, Apec has no arrangement for engagement with civil society groups and the
-
I enjoyed reading Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson’s books, Free, and The Long Tail. Anyone who loves to blog or spend time online will find them highly informative. Here, in The Long Tail, Anderson is writing about the “reputation economy”. As a blogger himself, he understands why people blog and create websites, whether they expect to
-
Here is the Technorati Top 100 blogs list for today, which I converted into a line chart after reading Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. The Huffington Post is at the top of the chart with a Technology authority of 968 and Big Government, The Big Picture and Dvice round off the list with an authority
-
Can anyone write like John Updike? He could make even adultery lyrical. He does not turn a blind eye to the toll it takes. The lovers are exposed for what they are — cheating on their spouses and neglecting their little children. But Updike’s powerful prose captures the irresistible magnetism that drives two married people
-
TS Eliot is Britain’s favourite poet, according to a BBC online poll. More good news: John Donne came in second and Yeats and Dylan Thomas also ended up in the top 10. I am surprised Auden didn’t make the list. How couldn’t he? More than 18,000 votes were cast and the top 10 favourite poets
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Readiscovery 