Readiscovery

What I've read and discovered

  • Adlestrop, Edward Thomas and Sweet Tooth

    I had to look up this poem after reading about it in Ian McEwan’s novel, Sweet Tooth. Adlestrop, a poem by Edward Thomas, comes up in a moment of intimacy between the heroine, Serena Frome, and her lover, Tom Haley, a writer.

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  • Sweet Tooth: A love story

    Ian McEwan, author of Atonement and Amsterdam, which won the Booker prize in 1998, knows how to begin a story. Sweet Tooth has your attention from the get-go:

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  • Lionel Asbo: What the dickens, Martin Amis!

    Martin Amis is a brilliant writer and he really lets it rip in his novel, Lionel Asbo. The colourful characters could be descended straight from Charles Dickens. Amis writes about the modern English chav with the same gusto as Dickens wrote about Victorian low life.

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  • From Falstaff to Elvis Presley

    This is why I love the World Wide Web. It took me from Falstaff to Elvis Presley.

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  • 1963: Annus Mirabilis, Beatles!

    I saw a video of a concert given by the Beatles in 1963 which made me think, oh my God, 50 years have gone by since then, some of the young fans singing along with their idols at the concert may no longer even be around any more, but gone…

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  • Joseph Anton: Rushdie on Rushdie

    I remember watching on CNN the World Trade Center collapse on September 11, 2001. I could not believe my eyes as the two planes commandeered by al-Qaeda terrorists hit the twin towers, bringing them down in tongues of fire, clouds of smoke. Nearly 3,000 people were killed and retribution followed…

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  • Margaret Thatcher and the books of her time

    I blogged about Margaret Thatcher and the music of her time and have seen quite a few articles since then about the British pop music scene of that era. One should recall the books, too. It was a grand time for booklovers. P.G. Wodehouse died in 1975, but one could…

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  • Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher

    An amazing parallel runs through the political careers of Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of the Republic of Singapore, and Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman prime minister. Both began their political career at the same time and stepped down as prime minister on the same day. Both laid…

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  • Andrew Marvell and His Coy Mistress

    Today is the birthday of Andrew Marvell (March 31,1621 – August 16,1678), the author of one of the most anthologized love poems, To His Coy Mistress. I love the poem. I saw it described somewhere as a lover asking a virgin to sleep with him. But that is overlooking its…

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  • The Gift Outright by Robert Frost

    Today is the birthday of Robert Frost, who was born on March 26, 1874. His poems make us think of rural New England, but he was born in San Francisco. Here is the poem he read at the inauguration of President Kennedy in January 1961. The poet died in Boston…

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