writing
Writers are tarts
Tarts. That’s what we are, really, us writers. Not just in the general sense of loving attention – also in the more specific, ‘professional’ meaning of the word. Our living… Continue reading
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In praise of Plum
This blog post is not going to say anything original. You’ll have read it all before. Its sole purpose is to convince you that P.G. Wodehouse is the master so… Continue reading
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Bad Sex Award
Loins are girded and members tumescent, for next Tuesday sees the presentation of this year’s Bad Sex Award. The Literary Review’s annual prize for the worst description of sex in… Continue reading
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Meeting J.G. Ballard
In the programme Frost on Interviews that was recently rebroadcasted by BBC Four, the distinguished journalist, David Frost, attempted to understand what makes a compelling interview. Frost’s programme concentrated primarily… Continue reading
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Write a novel in a month
Could you write a novel in a month? Plenty of people around the world are trying to do just that right at the moment. November, you see, is National Novel… Continue reading
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Paper talk
The rainforests must be jumping for joy these days. Which is ironic, as they’ve largely got Amazon to thank for it. As the e-book continues its rise, there’ll be less… Continue reading
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Plein-air pleasures and the great indoors
Some say it’s the walk there that does it. The promenade down a rambling city path and through a crowd of coffee-swigging commuters that fuels the inspiration that can only… Continue reading
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How many words are there in a day?
‘Write your own name a hundred times,’ T.H. White once commented, ‘and you will be bored; seven hundred times and you will be exasperated; seven thousand times, and your brains… 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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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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Robert Hughes RIP
It has been a bad week for men of letters, with the loss of Gore Vidal a few days ago and Robert Hughes today. Gore was famous for his feuds,… Continue reading
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Nabokov’s true love
When Vladimir Nabokov’s unfinished book (not quite a novel, not quite a novella) The Original of Laura was posthumously released in 2009, consternation over whether it was right to publish… Continue reading
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The art of fiction: Jonathan Franzen, essayist
Do great novelists make great essayists? Not in the case of Jonathan Franzen, at least according to Phillip Lopate, who reviewed Franzen’s new essay collection Farther Away for the New… Continue reading
0 CommentsRIP Ray Bradbury, 1920 – 2012
The revered science fiction, horror and mystery writer Ray Bradbury has died aged 91. He was best known for Fahrenheit 451, his blockbuster of 1953. He became known as a… Continue reading
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