Category: Books
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Life Saving: Why We Need Poetry
Reading a book of poems can be such a pleasure. There’s the thrill of discovering a poem that absolutely bowls you over, the pleasure of re-reading an old favourite and learning something about the life of the poet or poets whose poetry fills the book. I derived all three pleasures…
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Unknowingly quoting Shakespeare
You don’t have to know Shakespeare to quote him. Every day we quote Shakespeare, without even knowing we are using his words. He has become part and parcel of our language.
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Graham Greene and The End of the Affair
Why do the most popular love stories have star-crossed lovers? Think of Romeo and Juliet. I am not ashamed to admit I was moved by Erich Segal’s Love Story. Nicholas Sparks’ handkerchief-wetting The Notebook ends with the lovers embracing, but one of them has Alzheimer’s.
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The wonderful Jan Morris, writer extraordinaire
Today is the birthday of Jan Morris. In my book, she ranks alongside John Updike, Lawrence Durrell and PG Wodehouse as one of the four finest 20th century writers in English.
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Kamala Das and Nissim Ezekiel
After a long time, I came across poems by Kamala Das and Nissim Ezekiel. I found Love, by Kamala Das, in Penguin’s Poems for Weddings, selected by Laura Barber, and Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher, by Nissim Ezekiel, in The Picador Book of Weddings, edited by Peter Forbes. The poems stirred old…
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JB Priestley: 50 years before Brexit
Brexit shocked the world. But the writing had been on the wall. It had been foreseen nearly 50 years ago – by an English writer, naturally. Today is his birthday. JB Priestley (September 13, 1894 – August 14, 1984 ) might have been forgotten by now had his play, An…
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DH Lawrence: Piano, and Sons and Lovers
Yesterday was the birthday of DH Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930). So I read again one of his poems which I have liked ever since I came across it in my last days in high school. The poem is called Piano.
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If you want to write
If You Want to Write is a book I love to go back to. I like the author, Brenda Ueland, because she genuinely encourages you to write. She doesn’t tell you how to write dialogue, construct a plot or create a character. First published in 1938, the book doesn’t go…
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Joseph Nye and the American century
Is the American Century Over? That is the title is a slim, little monograph by the American political scientist Joseph Nye published in 2015. He agrees with Time magazine founder Henry Luce, who wrote a remarkable essay in 1941 during the Second World War that the 20th century was the…
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Going down mean streets with Philip Marlowe and Raymond Chandler
Has there ever been a more haunting crime writer than Raymond Chandler? I was about to say “stylish”, but that hardly describes a writer so romantic, with a voice so distinct, as Chandler. Born on July 23, 1888, he died on March 26, 1959, but he is readable as ever.…
Readiscovery 