Fiction
Of snobs, nobs and plebs
The muggles of Tutshill, Gloucestershire, have a bone to pick with J.K. Rowling. Tutshill is where Rowling spent her unhappy teens and apparently it is the model for Pagford, the… Continue reading
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‘Story of O’ and the Oral Tradition
A fascinating case was recently brought before the Italian courts. After six years of conjugal submission to her padrone (far better than master, give it that) a woman has filed… Continue reading
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Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ revisited
The publication of Joseph Anton (tomorrow), Salman Rushdie’s much anticipated memoir, has given newspapers cause to revisit The Satanic Verses. The commentary focuses on the bloodthirsty and backward response that the… Continue reading
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Review – Sebastian Faulks’s A Possible Life
In a promotional video clip, Sebastian Faulks describes his new novel, A Possible Life, as like ‘a symphony in five movements… or an album in which the tracks are separate… Continue reading
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Review: Zoo Time by Howard Jacobson
Winning the Booker can do strange things. For one, critics tend to become noticeably shyer around authors with some bling in their trophy cabinets, hyperbole blunting their edge. But if… Continue reading
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An introduction to Javier Marías
The fundamental purpose of the literary critic is to incentivise his audience to read books of which he approves. He has two means at his disposal. The first of those… Continue reading
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The language of criminals
The English language is, as English would have it, an odd duck. Its nuances are capricious — to the non-native, maliciously so — but its lyricism widely praised. My preoccupation… Continue reading
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Booker Prize shortlist announced
The 2012 Booker Prize shortlist has been announced. The runners and riders are: Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books) Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (And Other Stories/Faber &… Continue reading
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A tale of two Smiths: Zadie Smith and The Smiths
It is lit-fiction season: that time of the year of when the premier novelists of the age dominate the market. Ian McEwan, Pat Barker, Zadie Smith, Sebastian Faulks and Rose… Continue reading
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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished business
It’s hard enough convincing people to read finished novels much less unfinished ones — though perhaps our cultural obsession with The Great Gatsby is reason enough to republish F. Scott… Continue reading
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Do we need to know what a character looks like?
How much attention do you pay to the physical descriptions of characters in novels? Interviewed on Five Live recently about her latest book NW, Zadie Smith said that she never… Continue reading
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Shelf Life: Patrick Hennessey
Patrick Hennessey was a founder member of the Junior Officers’ Reading Club, formed when the Grenadier Guards toured Iraq in 2006. He is the author of
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What comes after Fifty Shades?
After the record-breaking success of the Fifty Shades trilogy, publishers are desperately trying to answer the multi-million dollar question, what comes next? What will all those millions of readers who… Continue reading
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The Hamlet of the trenches: Parade’s End reviewed
Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End is being republished as well as adapted for the screen by the BBC. I first discovered the tetralogy when, in an attempt to improve my… Continue reading
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Nina Bawden dies age 87
Author of classic children’s novel Carrie’s War and the Booker shortlisted Circles of Deceit, Nina Bawden has died today aged 87. Apart from writing over forty novels for adults and children,… Continue reading
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Across the literary pages: Jeanette Winterson
The fanfaronade for Ian McEwan’s latest book Sweet Tooth, a seventies spy novel tantalisingly based on his own life and featuring a cameo from Martin Amis, has begun ahead of… Continue reading
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Blast from the past: The Teleportation Accident reviewed
He’d probably agree with Edward Gibbon’s assessment of history as ‘little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind’ but Ned Beauman’s instinct as to why… Continue reading
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Happy birthday V.S. Naipaul
Given it’s V.S. Naipaul’s birthday today, we’ve dug out from the archives a 1979 Spectator review by Richard West of A Bend In The River. Don’t forget that the Shiva Naipaul Memorial… Continue reading
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The marriage plot: The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger reviewed
Few could accuse literary fiction of not doing its best to perk up the US export sector recently. It has been a truly remarkable year. A quick glance at my… Continue reading
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China’s labours
This review will not be kind. But let’s not start that way. Ground lies between. Rewind. Am I the only person to find being addressed like this intensely irritating? China… Continue reading
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