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The Great Gatsby
Scott Fitzgerald and video of The Great Gatsby starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. Now I know why Scott Fizgerald is considered one of the finest American writers. I just finished reading The Great Gatsby. This little novel, just over a hundred pages long, is an absolute gem, a love story that’s also a morality […]
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Remembering WH Auden
This month marks Auden’s birth centenary, reminds the Guardian. He was born on Feb 21, 1907. He was the people’s poet, says the article in the Guardian. The writer, Theo Hobson, says: “Auden’s rise to fame in the 1930s is hard to believe now: it is impossible to imagine a young poet achieving comparable status […]
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Lynne Truss.com
Eats, Shoots & Leaves author Lynne Truss now has her own website! So what? Every writer has a website now. Hello! This is big news, reported by Reuters. However, after visiting http://www.lynnetruss.com. I don’t think any punctuation mark can do it justice. It deserves an emoticon. Like this: 😦 Truss may well riposte, “Talk to […]
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The Sunday Philosophy Club
This is the second book I have read by Alexander McCall Smith. I loved his bestseller, The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. In a way, this is even better. Isobel Dalhousie is as far removed from Precious Ramotswe, the owner of The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, as Edinburgh from Botswana. Precious is Botswana’s only […]
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Google Books? Not yet in Singapore
Avid readers can download and print classics such as Dante’s Divine Comedy and Aesop’s Fables through Google’s Book Search for free from today, say the Guardian and the BBC. Readers will be allowed to download PDF files of books no longer under copyright. But I wasn’t able to access the service here in Singapore. The […]
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A prostitute falls in love
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber Sugar is a 19-year-old prostitute in Victorian London who wants a better life, William Rackham a perfumer’s son who wants to be a gentleman and not a businessman. Married to a lord’s stepdaughter with mental problems, however, he visits Sugar after hearing about her from […]
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The poetry of Amit Chaudhuri
Three Novels by Amit Chaudhuri: A Strange and Sublime Address, Afternoon Raag, Freedom Song Amit Chaudhuri is like no other Indian writer I have read recently. He writes about ordinary day-to-day life like RK Narayan and Ruskin Bond, but in a language so vivid and evocative it sometimes rises to poetry. His novels are not […]
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I fell hard for the love interest
The Good German by Joseph Kanon This is a classic, a twisty, noirish, romantic thriller. I fell hard for the love interest — the hero’s, that is. American newsman Jake Geismar flies into Berlin after the death of Hitler on an assignment from a famous magazine. But he has returned really to look for the […]
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PD James and The Lighthouse
I just finished reading PD James’ latest mystery, The Lighthouse, which came out last year. And I must admit I am a little disappointed. Not that I would have missed it for anything in the world. PD James is too good a writer to ever really let down her readers. The writing is as assured […]
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The World Is Flat — and mind-blowing
Some of the chapters in this book are mind-blowing. Thomas Friedman really dazzles with the breadth of his knowledge about the innovations changing the world today. He was not my favourite New York Times columnist when I could read him online for free. Some of his analysis struck me as too simplistic. Despite being one […]