Be Lambic or Green (Free subscription) | 30/06/2008
Shatnerian tagged me (he tagged me on Facebook, what’s that all about'). The following is a list compiled by the BBC of books we’re supposed to have read. Bold means I’ve read it, underlined means I love it and italics (red) means I started it but didn’t finish. 36 is part of 33 so I’m not [...]
whoar.co.nz (Free subscription) | 13/06/2008
“..”Whose top advisers are linked to war profiteers'” asks John Cusack in a new TV ad linking John McCain and George Bush (”Both…Bet you can’t tell them apart”). The ad, produced by MoveOn.org, starts airing today and is already being passed around the Internet. Cusack’s righteous rage over the billions being pocketed in Iraq by companies [...]
Blowin' In The Wind (Free subscription) | 27/05/2008
Book lovers will enjoy this trip down memory lane with Robert McCrum (left), who stepped down as literary editor of the Observer this month after 10 years on the job. McCrum, who has written about the English language (The Story...
The Independent (Free subscription) | 25/05/2008
The author and screenwriter Gore Vidal, one of the last giants of an American literary scene that included Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and Joseph Heller, has admitted that he may once have fathered a love child, but refused to be part of her upbringing because he had paid for the mother to have an abortion.
A Million Paths (Free subscription) | 14/05/2008
Below is a list of the top 106 books tagged "unread" on LibraryThing. I got the heads up on this from reading Kiss My Kimchi The rules: bold = what you've read, italics = books you started but couldn't finish...
Virtual Economics (Free subscription) | 13/05/2008
David Brooks writes in today's NYT (HT MR): "In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people...
Home Sweet Home (Free subscription) | 11/05/2008
I can't resist a book, especially if it is going cheap in a charity shop. I now have more books than I care to mention on my bookshelves which need reading. Alway motivated by a good list (or two) here are the outstanding books on my bookshelves - I just need to get cracking! Catch 22 - Joseph Heller Marley and Me - John Grogan The Interpretation of Murder - Jed Rubenfeld How to be good - Nick Hornby...
Acheron LV-426 (Free subscription) | 06/05/2008
"...almost two decades before programs such as "America's Most Wanted" and "COPS" appeared, King offered a predictive and trenchant critique of reality police television shows. Second, influenced by Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, King both employed and modified the dystopian convention of using a dialogue between the protagonist and a member of the ruling elite to...
Bill Peschel (Free subscription) | 01/05/2008
B orn today: Joseph Addison, essayist, poet, playwright, Milston, Wiltshire, 1672; Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, Jesuit author, paleontologist, philosopher, Sarcenat, France, 1881; Sterling Brown, poet, literary critic, Washington, D.C., 1901; Niccoló Tucci, novelist, short-story writer, Lugano, Switzerland, 1908; Terry Southern, novelist, screenwriter, Alvarado, Texas, 1924; Joseph Heller, novelist,...
H5N1 (Free subscription) | 29/04/2008
For those who haven't read Joseph Heller's great novel, a "Catch-22" is a contradiction. In the novel, a bomber pilot who wants to fly more missions is obviously insane. Insane pilots don't have to fly more missions. But if a...
Everybody lies (Free subscription) | 28/04/2008
I just found this list at Puss Reboots, who got it from Bibliobibuli, who in turn found it at the site of The Telegraph. The allegedly 50 best cult books. What exactly a cult book is defies an easy definition. I thought the Telegraph’s attempts at explaining it were quite funny: Some things crop up often: drugs, [...]
Diary of a Girl Geek (Free subscription) | 26/04/2008
* Finish Melbourne Uni with an average of H2B * Graduate with a 2:1 * Finish a certain project I've started * Take up regular exercise * Learn to walk on stilts * Learn another language * Visit the theatre at least ten times before the end of 2008 * Go to art galleries and/or museums at least twice a month * Not leave my essays until the last minute * Take up poi again, and finally master the 5-beat...
ComicList Complete (Free subscription) | 24/04/2008
French embassy hosts Christophe Blain; critics compare him to Vonnegut & Daumier “Christophe Blain is one of those super-creators in France that very few English-speaking people have heard of.” — Read About Comics “[Blain's] styles of figuration and lighting marry Daumier and Munch.” — Booklist “Like Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut.” — School Library Journal Read more » Original post blogged on b2evolution...
Doc's Talk (Free subscription) | 07/04/2008
Emilio Karim Dabul Monday, April 7th 2008, 4:00 AM BE OUR GUEST There was a time centuries ago in Arab countries when intellectual introspection was common and the culture produced searching, self-critical scholarship in various arenas. That time is gone. Today, brave and questioning souls like Irshad Manji, who calls for an Islamic Reformation, receive death threats. Without the ability to look inward,...
Jaded Objectivity (Free subscription) | 01/04/2008
I'm a big Joseph Heller fan. So much so that I refer lovingly to a friend of mine as "Yossarian" based on his striking resemblance to the character of the same name from Heller's book, "Catch 22" . As I'm rereading it for the third time in my life, I have been amused almost to the point of reprinting the whole thing here. Since that would be awfully time consuming and probably illegal, even with proper...
