All has been quiet on the blog lately, due to excessive levels of busy-ness. I have been reading, however, and what's more I even tried to blog a couple of days ago, only to be met by Epic Computer Fail (ECF) in the middle of it, and losing everything I'd written. Highly irritating! By that point, I was sleepy and went to bed rather than re-typing ( Read more... )

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First up, on this lovely relaxing Sunday morning let's start with the Sunday happies! I've been looking forward to Not the TV Book Group since Kirsty at Other Stories blogged about it a little while ago. It's a fun project, and I find that on this, The Guardian and I are of the same mind.

So for those of you who are interested, the first 'programme ( Read more... )

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It may not appear to be so to the casual observer, but I have been reading! Unfortunately, while I made every attempt to select books that I thought looked good or expected to be interesting and well-written, I haven't been entirely successful. The two books I've read most recently (excluding the Georgette Heyer I dipped into, because everybody ( Read more... )

Use it to draw a line, of course!

Ahem.

Moving swiftly along, I finally managed yesterday to go to the British Museum's Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler exhibition, which closed this weekend. It was a good exhibition, with some really beautiful pieces, although I didn't feel that a lot of items were adequately contextualised. I left having read some ( Read more... )

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There's a really interesting post at Mark Athitakis' American Fiction Notes on an essay by Leon Wieseltier. Wieseltier was dismissive of novels which involved lots of - or perhaps even not that much - research, and Mark Athitakis makes some good points in response.

What I'm wondering, though, is why research specifically is being identified as a ( Read more... )

Zora Neale Hurston wasn't always as well known and admired as she is today; she didn't receive huge remuneration from her books and at the end of her life was buried in an unmarked grave. The most well known of her works now, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was out of print for 30 years. It's now widely available, and has even been made into a film ( ( Read more... )

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