Round one. This is how it starts: "Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert": and then we're in the book. I think those fifteen words are a great first sentence primarily for their economy, for the terseness which is successfully challenging for at least one reader, and yet which manages to begin to sketch a ( Read more... )

An extraordinary novel in many ways, one of which is the way in which I think this, from Rosemary Ashton's introduction to the current Penguin Classic edition, is dead wrong:
We have seen that Lydgate's own ideal of womanhood is damagingly limited and egotistical. So too is Casaubon's ... Yet there is some authorial ambivalence here. Just as, while ( Read more... )

Following on from a mutually surprising discussion last weekend:

Poll

Justification in the comments welcomed.

Aside from this glowing review (key references, Ballard, Stephenson, DeLillo; key phrase, "reinvention of the past as though it were science fiction"; review titled 'Pattern Recognition'), on Simon Ings' website we find this disclosure:And finally. Weight's mysterious, slightly farcical philosophical society exists: it’s called the Science Fiction ( Read more... )

I was tagged by Chance. I'm not tagging anyone, but if you want to write fifteen things about books, I will only encourage you ( Read more... )

OK, gang, here's the deal: I'm on holiday next week. I am looking forward to nine consecutive days filled with sleeping, reading, and writing (and maybe just a little bit of socialising). But there's a problem, which is that even my I-must-read-this-soon buffer is overflowing, never mind my actual to-be-read pile (or the to-be-read sprawl, as I ( Read more... )

Kate Atkinson's Case Histories was the first selection of the litblog co-op. For those who might not be aware (I'm thinking white_hart might be interested):AUGUST 29 - KATE ATKINSON

Well don't say LBC doesn't keep its word - however late. Kate Atkinson will, indeed, be dropping by here next Monday, August 29th to discuss Case Histories. If you've got any ( Read more... )

Or, what I read on my holiday, by Niall Harrison (aged 25 and one day).

I hadn't planned to read Eco on my holiday; ok, so I prefer my fiction challenging, but my one previous encounter with Eco, The Name of the Rose, was sufficiently intellectually daunting that I wouldn't normally consider him for a relaxing read (especially since I was only ( Read more... )

Trash Sex Magic is Jennifer Stevenson's first novel. I finished it earlier this week, and have been mulling it over since then. My opinion of it is taking time to settle. In part, that's because it's a tricky book to describe ( Read more... )

So I read a bunch of books last year, and some of them were quite good.

You want more than that?

( ok, here's more than that )