Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

I can't say I am desperately keen on the evil-corruption plot, but there are simply hundreds of immensely witty, quotable lines in this, which makes it a huge pleasure to read. There are more memorable lines in the preface than in most author's careers.

The good news is that they successfully fitted a stent for me today! This is a 14cm metal tube in my oesophagus, which should hold back that tumour enough for me to eat - I've not managed any solid food in ages, and even soup has been coming straight back up. I currently weigh 9st 4lb, about five stone down on my weight before this started. The ( Read more... )

Yukio Mishima - The Decay of the Angel

A slightly disappointing finish to the tetralogy: the blurb claims that it pulls together the themes of courtly behaviour, samurai spirit and Buddhist thought from the first three, but it really doesn't, and the dreary nastiness of the fourth incarnation makes for a rather flattened finish.

Kandinsky by Michael Robinson

In The World's Greatest Art series: small pages, but lots of them, nearly 400, with pushing 200 colour repros. It's laid out as if each repro gets a short page about it, but actually the pages flow more than that suggests, at times talking about Kandinsky's life and work and ignoring the specific image. Mostly I buy ( Read more... )

I now have an appointment for 9am at the Whittington on Thursday morning, for endoscopy and if possible, fitting a stent. This will mean sedation, so I will need accompanying home afterwards (which is probably just a formality, from past experience). I’m not sure how long it will take - a couple of hours I guess, so out at 11, home in a taxi by 11. ( Read more... )

I don't know if the muscle cream I was given the other day is helping or if it is just the improved painkillers, but I am badly uncomfortable less of the time, so I am sleeping and resting more easily, so feeling a bit less uncomfortable and weak ( Read more... )

It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi

An unrelentingly grim and harrowing graphic novel about WWI, showing the countless myseries and pains of living and dying in trenches and the like. It's magnificently done in script and art, at times feeling like you are reading first-person accounts supported by implausibly good photos (not that his ( Read more... )

Alice Hoffman - White Horses

Probably my second favourite of hers. It centres on the love a girl has for her older brother, a thoroughly bad person. It does become incestuous at times, but the key theme is the difference between the reality and her fantasy of him. As ever, the emotions are heightened enormously, partly by the use of magical realist

James Lee Burke - Rain Gods

This would be a good place to start with him: a non-series novel very comparable to Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men, but also featuring the almost apocalyptic Biblical tones of some of McCarthy's other books (and he really is comparably good). The landscape is Texan, the characters varied and hugely powerful, and ( Read more... )

Scenes From An Impending Marriage by Adrian Tomine

This is a small book detailing the preparations for the author's wedding, plus a few epilogue pages. It's a brief read, but one full of charm and talent. It covers all aspects of the day: guest list, invitations, flowers, venue, music, clothes, conflicting family requests, gift registers, hairstyles ( Read more... )