On Vulpes Libris, Jay Benedict reviews Banquet of Lies by Amin Zaoui:
The first thing I should warn you about is that this book is not for the politically correct or the faint-hearted or those with Anglo-Saxon attitudes. It breaks down pretty much every social convention and taboo that we in the West have been raised to believe in, and turns them on their heads. Necrophilia turns out not to be dead boring after all, but more an act of an everlasting prayer to the creator. Devouring women, withered by age and time, on creaky beds and straw mattresses in dank stables reeking of animals is the order of the day; in fact the whole process brings you closer to God. You begin to see?
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When he was on the screen, it was hard to see anyone else . . .
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The Guardian reports on five Cuban men who were arrested for infiltrating groups in the US in 1998. It was alleged that they were plotting attacks on Cuba. They have not received a fair trial and two have not seen their families in the intervening ten years.
Nine Nobel laureates, including Desmond Tutu and the German novelist Günter Grass have joined forces with others to protest the US government’s detention of the so-called Miami Five.
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The opening concert of the Oslo Jazz Festival took place at the new Opera House on the 11th August.
The Norwegian Wind Ensemble, conducted by Maria Schneider, played Porgy & Bess, followed by Sketches of Spain, to a capacity audience.
Solo trumpeter Nicholas Payton used Porgy & Bess to present a laid-back opening set with a smooth [...]
I want to say a little more about that short phrase, which at this stage is all we know from the blonde woman’s lips. ‘We share only a bairn, a dog and a car.’
It strikes me as a brave thing to say because it reveals certain vulnerabilities. It tells whoever is listening that she is [...]
The BBC reports on the work of Dr Adam Fox, who has compiled a list of the abbreviations doctors use in their notes. These are used, allegedly, to pinpoint the unspeakable truths about their patients:
The increasing rate of litigation means that there is a far higher chance that doctors will be asked in court to [...]
Three Monkeys Online has a piece from Horatio Morpurgo, about the editorial style and personal life of his gandfather, Allen Lane. As well as founding Penguin Books, Lane was responsible for the first English publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses and DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
To summarise you might say that Penguin was fathered by Inspired [...]
I tried to read this last year and found it tedious and overworked, but when I picked it up again the other day it seemed to have changed considerably, grabbed me by the throat and kept my attention right through to the last page. Books, eh? You look away for a moment, and . [...]
I was going to call this novel Unedited.
Unedited?
A short novel for the internet.
Although, with a nod in the direction of Per Petterson, it might be called Out Stealing Timber, because that’s what I was doing when the idea came to me.
We were basking in a heatwave during the summer and I set the saw-horse up [...]
I had this in my head for the last few days.
Leonard Cohen and Judy Collins, recorded in 1976.
Melancholy is my middle name.
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The Guardian has the text of a speech David Foster Wallace gave to a graduating class at Kenyon College, Ohio:
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding [...]
From Jacob Russell’s Barking Dog, on Sarah Palin:
Those warnings not to underestimate her were right. This is one sick scary power hungry person… a Pretty White Lady version of Idi Amin…. gave me chills…
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At the Kenyon Review, Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky, discusses innocence and obscenity, with particular reference to Thomas Glave’s story The Torturer’s Wife, which appears [...]
