You are currently browsing the booklit weblog archives for November, 2007.

Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
Posted in Monzó, Quim, Peter Owen, death, humour, murder, Spain, relationships
10 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
There's probably a lot of jokes than can be made about an author named Quim translated by someone called Bush and, with that in mind, I'll try and give them ... Read more..
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
Posted in fundamentalism, Peter Owen, child abuse, Virtue, Noel, New Zealand, religion, gothic
2 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
When a novel centres around child who has a hard life, I can't help thinking that it's a fictional take on the author's own upbringing. I could find scant information ... Read more..
Thursday, November 15th, 2007
Posted in fate, intertextual, Vintage, 1001 Books, experimental, Italy, short stories, Calvino, Italo, metafiction, first person narrator
3 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
It has been a couple of years since I first read Italo Calvino, picking up his wonderful if on a winter's night a traveler on a whim and being captivated ... Read more..
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
Posted in Souvenir Press, Hansen, Ron, America
6 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
I've always enjoyed the occasional western although racking my brains it would seem that my whole experience of the genre is limited to cinema, so it felt right, especially with ... Read more..
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
Posted in short stories, Fante, Dan, Wrecking Ball Press, alcoholism, first person narrator, America, addiction, relationships
2 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
Having read a novel by John Fante a couple of years back I was interested in reading something by his son, Dan. From what I understand, Fante fils is more ... Read more..
Friday, November 9th, 2007
Posted in coming of age, repression, Peter Owen, Vesaas, Tarjei, Norway, missing children, humanity, award winner
10 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
There's a common misconception that Eskimos have an inflated number of words for snow. Probably because there's various Eskimo tribes, all speaking their own languages. I have no idea how ... Read more..
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
Posted in Pan Macmillan, 1001 Books, power, death, America, Oates, Joyce Carol, politics
13 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
Joyce Carol Oates is one of those authors who seem to have a book out every year and, with forty years' worth of output spanning novels, short stories, plays, essays, ... Read more..
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
Posted in reality, metaphysical, Picador, 1001 Books, DeLillo, Don, time, marriage, America, grief, love
4 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
Don DeLillo is an author I've been wanting to read for some time but have never got round to, for two reasons. The first, stupidly, is that his novel ... Read more..
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
Posted in humour, Profile Books, reading, duty, Bennett, Alan, England
2 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
There seems to be a trend for slim pocket volumes coming with exorbitant prices. First there was André Brink's The Blue Door and now it's Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader. ... Read more..
Sunday, November 4th, 2007
Posted in Brink, André, Harvill Secker, South Africa, first person narrator, marriage, identity, relationships
2 responses so far. Keep them coming. »
On the back of André Brink's The Blue Door there's a quote from Nadine Gordimer referring to it as a novel but, at 122 pages, it has even less of ... Read more..