Category: Books
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Martin Amis, 61 today, on ageing
Martin Amis is 61 today. Happy birthday. Here’s his own take on ageing from his latest novel, The Pregnant Widow, published this year. Martin Amis – never amiss with words: This is the way it goes. In your mid-forties, you have your first crisis of mortality (death will not ignore…
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How words get into the Oxford English Dictionary
I have seen the word “linguaphile” (meaning word lover or language lover) on Dictionary.com and the Free Dictionary, but it’s not there in the Oxford English Dictionary. It no longer tries to be comprehensive. “The language is expanding so fast this may be an impossible mission,” said Edmund Weiner, deputy…
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Grammar with music
I was reminded of this sweet old song, To Know Him Is To Love Him, while reading about grammar. No kidding. And the grammarian even referred to this song: I Put a Spell on You. (The Creedence Clearwater Revival version at the end of this post.) What has music, or…
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Good old writers
Who says old geezers can’t write? Some of them die with the sharpest minds. That’s certainly true of the literary critic Frank Kermode, who has just died at the age of 90. Reading about his death yesterday, I turned to his essays published in the London Review of Books. You…
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Good old writers
Who says old geezers can’t write? Some of them die with the sharpest minds. That’s certainly true of the literary critic Frank Kermode, who has just died at the age of 90. Reading about his death yesterday, I turned to his essays published in the London Review of Books. You…
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Flesh and Blood: Elder in love
If you love mysteries, read Flesh and Blood. The ending is an absolute stunner. The author, John Harvey, is probably better known for his Charlie Resnick novels. But here the detective is Frank Elder. Divorced and retired from the police force, he follows up an old case when one of…
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I can hear music
I love the Beach Boys’ song, I Can Hear Music. The ardour of young love and the sweet harmony capture all that is beautiful in life. Yes, it’s just a teenage love song, but listen to the jangling guitars, insistent beat and plaintive voices. Isn’t that what life is all…
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How easy to read is Jane Austen?
Sparkling with wit, Jane Austen’s graceful style is even more reader-friendly than the language of newspapers. So are the first chapters of literary classics like David Copperfield and Sons and Lovers. They are all easier to read than newspapers. That’s what I found in a readability test that looked at…
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To Kill a Mockingbird: The real Atticus, the real Dill
Fifty years ago this month, an unknown young writer from Alabama published her first novel. Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird, still sells almost a million copies a year. Charles J. Shields, author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, the only biography of the writer, talks…
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World Cup poem by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy
A new poem by the poet laureate in response to England’s dismal Fifa World Cup run. The Shirt by Carol Ann Duffy Afterwards, I found him alone at the bar and asked him what went wrong. It’s the shirt, he said. When I pull it on it hangs on my…
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