Category: Books
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The Complaints: No Rebus but pure Rankin
Police procedurals don’t get better than The Complaints. Ian Rankin is in riveting good form. I couldn’t put down the book until I finished it. And it doesn’t even feature Inspector Rebus, who had his swansong in Exit Music, published in 2007. The Complaints, published last year, presents a new…
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Spenser’s creator Robert B Parker dead
Ed McBain (real name Evan Hunter) died in 2005, aged 78. Now Robert B Parker is dead at the age of 77. Between them, they were two of the most prolific crime fiction writers. Parker’s private eye Spenser was as popular as McBain’s 87th Precinct police procedurals. Parker died at…
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Essential Pleasures: Homage to Hips
I have been reading Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud, edited by Robert Pinksy. Readers will find plenty of old masterpieces here, such as Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold and Ulysses by Tennyson; but, as Pinsky says in his introduction: "I have also worked hard to…
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Robert Pinsky: Samurai Song
I have been reading Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud, edited by Robert Pinksy. Here is one of his own poems from the anthology: Samurai Song. I could not resist posting it here after seeing this video, where he recites the poem. Here’s the text. Samurai…
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Two poems about Singapore
One poem leads to another. Reading Reflecting on the Merlion: An Anthology of Poems edited by Edwin Thumboo and Yeow Kai Chai, and co-edited by Enoch Ng, Isa Kamari, and Seetha Lakshmi at the public library, I wanted to read more poems about Singapore. And, as luck would have it,…
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A book of poems about the Merlion
At the pubic library, I came across a book of poems entirely about the Merlion, the lion-headed, fish-tailed icon of Singapore. The book is called Reflecting on the Merlion: An Anthology of Poems. It’s edited by Edwin Thumboo and Yeow Kai Chai, and co-edited by Enoch Ng, Isa Kamari, and…
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A Truth Universally Acknowledged: About Jane Austen
Janeites will love A Truth Universally Acknowledged, a collection of essays by 33 famous writers and critics acknowledging the genius of Jane Austen. Her admirers will have the pleasure of discovering their feelings shared by writers like Virginia Woolf, EM Forster, Somerset Maugham, CS Lewis, JB Priestley, Kingsley Amis, Martin…
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Juliet, Naked and Nick Hornby: A bit of his life
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…
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That Old Cape Magic
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…
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