It may not be the Nobel Prize, but the competition for this year’s “Bad Sex in Fiction” award is just as stiff (cringe — pun intended). Philip Roth is on the Literary Review’s shortlist, and he’s in good company — current nominees include Amos Oz, Nick Cave, and John Banville, while past candidates include such [...] Related posts: Fiction Fix: Hugo Award Nominees...
Writer Antonio Tabucchi is being sued by the president of the Italian senate, for libel -- for 1,3 million euros. There's quite a bit about this in the European media, but not a single English-language article I could find; last week, Le Monde published a petition, Nous soutenons Antonio Tabucchi , signed by quite a few well-known intellectuals (including Homero Aridjis, Andrea Camilleri, Patrick...
For those of you celebrating Thanksgiving this week, have a happy Thanksgiving. — scorching criticism — *** — Psychological therapy 32 times more cost effective at increasing happiness than money — *** — Can Nick Cave rival Bad Sex Award favorite Philip Roth? — *** — A list of Thanksgiving poems for family and friends. — *** — Just in time for Thanksgiving...
The talk above is the first of 26 lectures making up a free Yale course called “The American Novel Since 1945.” Taught by Amy Hungerford, the course introduces you to the novels of America’s finest post-war writers -- Nabokov (émigré), Salinger, Keroauc and Pynchon, and also Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy and Jonathan Safran [...]
N.B.: This is a far more thoughtful response to Feodor's complaint about my remarks concerning Marcel Proust. If this doesn't satisfy him, well, I'll buy him a subscription to Dissent. One point George Scialabba made last evening with which I profoundly disagree (for obvious reasons) is the effect of the internet on literacy . I find this odd, in particular, since so much of what happens on the internet...
As in written about Bad Sex. I've personally written sex badly and written bad sex quote badly too. Here's the nominees for this year. Paul Theroux’s A Dead Hand (Hamish Hamilton) Philip Roth’s The Humbling (Jonathan Cape), Anthony Quinn’s The Rescue Man (Jonathan Cape), Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones (Chatto), Amos Oz’s Rhyming Life and Death (Chatto), Nick Cave’s...
Hooray, Philip Roth is on the shortlist for the Literary Review's Bad Sex Award for a scene in his novel The Humbling involving three people and a green dildo. I haven't researched this thoroughly, but it's a travesty if he hasn't been a mainstay of this list throughout his career. I'm generally not enthusiastic about American Jewish fiction, but I've read a lot of his books mostly because of how filthy...
No, the title isn't a typo! Believe it or not, Nick Cave has been nominated for the 17th annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award presented by the Literary Review magazine for his book " The Death of Bunny Munro ". Other nominees include Philip Roth and Paul Theroux , whilst Tom Wolfe , Melvyn Bragg and Sebastian Faulks are all past winners! The award was set up by Auberon Waugh to "draw attention...
by Philip RothCape, £12.99 Philip Roth has been the most enthralling American writer of the past 25 years. As a result his readers expect a masterpiece every time. Roth does not always deliver one but he doesn’t always try to. His new novel is very short and limited in scope. But it is by no means a negligible work.Simon Axler is an aging American stage actor whose powers are on the wane....
Did Frank Gehry make a Viagra joke at a topping-off ceremony? The Blind Side movie made Ken Starr all teary-eyed. Colum McCann's Let The Great World Spin won the National Book Award. Meanwhile, Philip Roth was shortlisted for a bad-sex writing prize. The Times inspires darkening, then repair of a Queens hospital sign. Goldman Sachs picks 272 new managing directors. Galleon case keep growing; insider...
They've announced the contenders for the Literary Review 's popular 'Bad Sex' award -- typically: not yet at the official site , but Alison Flood has the lowdown in Bad sex award shortlist pits Philip Roth against stiff competition in The Guardian . Embarrassingly, quite a few of these books are under review at the complete review : Paul Theroux's A Dead Hand Philip Roth's The Humbling Jonathan Littell's...
According to today’s Grauniad, the great Philip Roth has been shortlisted for the Literary Review’s bad sex award. This trophy (a plaster foot) was inaugurated by the late Auberon Waugh to “draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.” It’s his most [...]