Reading
Current book is Towards the Light: The Story of the Struggles for Liberty and Rights That Made the Modern West by AC Grayling. Relevant but potentially dry-as-digestives topic given an impressive lightness of touch.
Wired piece on “Gamer Regret”, that shameful realisation that you’ve wasted an enormous chunk of your life on killing non-existent zombies.
Val Kilmer’s 1987 book of poetry is now worth over a thousand quid. It was the year after Top Gun, so he was in an especially creative phase.
Russell Brand’s weekly sports column in the Guardian was probably the only article on the Euro 2008 qualifiers to include the phrase “cry-wank”.
Ian Rankin talks about the final book of the Inspector Rebus series.
Predictable review of the week: Richard Dawkins reads Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great for the Times Literary Supplement.
The art of being a reclusive writer (JD Salinger, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, etc) in the age of the publicity whore.
Following Osama Bin Laden’s suave new look, Slate.com asks if it’s permissable for Muslims to dye their beards
Grayling writes a fine little philosophy column in Prospect. Being a journo you probably knew that! I’m fairly sure it’s free to read online.
He did a great article on relativism in April, which sort of stuck him in the same boat as the Pope (albeit at opposite ends I suppose).
Comment by dealga | September 11, 2007 at 5:33 pmI read Franny & Zooey last week for the first time. Salinger is brilliant - his descriptions of human behaviour stopped me in my tracks. If authors want to publicise their books, fine, but there’s no need for them to do so if they’re that good as far as I can see. Interesting article.
Comment by Liz | September 11, 2007 at 7:47 pmDealga - I’m meeting Grayling on Friday, at which point I will know everything about him - not that journalists don’t know everything in the first place, of course… By the way, it is free to read online. His website’s pretty good too, with several articles on a variety of topics.
Liz - I once went on national radio and said that Catcher in the Rye was the book I believe to be the most over-rated, but on you prompting I should take a look at Franny and Zooey.
Comment by Shane | September 12, 2007 at 9:34 amOh no, I can’t handle that kind of responsibility. Though if you do decide to read it, it’s very short, so easy enough to chalk up! As opposed to The Famished Road, which nearly killed me. I read it 10+ years ago and am still haunted by how much pain that caused. It was a gift. A gift from hell. The Booker Prize has alot to answer for.
Comment by Liz | September 12, 2007 at 1:22 pm