Archive for the ‘Reading’ Category
Given my on-going struggle to find the right title for my book, I was excited when I read about this site. It’s done by comedian Dan Wilbur, who might just be on to something. The idea is that these new titles “cut through the cryptic crap”, as Wilbur puts it, and tell you what the Click here to continue…
These days any self-respecting new novel comes with a You Tube-friendly video – presumably in the hope that it will “go viral” and become some sort of internet phenomenon. Well, that’s fair enough in theory – the problem is that usually these video trailers are awful. Usually they feature the author squirming in front of Click here to continue…
In Monday’s post I mentioned two exciting novelists whose work I had just discovered and was devouring in huge, quietly ecstatic chunks. Here’s more on them both. I’ll try and write more about the stuff I’m reading in future. Since, you know, this is a blog about books. Emily St. John Mandel is published by Click here to continue…
I suppose it was inevitable in the wake of the massive success of the new wave (geddit?) of Old Spice adverts that others would follow, either in parody or homage. But, well, libraries? Actually, I think this works rather brilliantly. Thanks to Maw Books Blog for sharing.
We’re back from a wonderful week away. Four days with friends in Boston, then four days in Maine. There we visited an old friend, Don, and his wife Samantha. Don and Samantha own Rabelais Books, a bookshop dedicated (and I do mean dedicated) to cookbooks. We loved our time with them. I will write Click here to continue…
This is such a cool idea: http://corpuslibris.blogspot.com
I wrote here about how much I dislike doing research for my books. It’s still true, but I have had to knuckle down and change my ways. Here’s a list of books I’ve read recently, all in the name of research for my next novel: Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers Please Kill Me – the Uncensored Click here to continue…
I’ve just finished reading a book by David Lipsky called Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself. That is, David Lipsky is the guy with his name on the cover and his photo on the jacket, but in fact 80% of the words in between the covers belong to the late, lamented David Foster Click here to continue…
I wrote in this post about my mixed feelings about the Barnes & Noble Nook – which I eventually returned. I know that the emergence of this new format is more or less inevitable over time, and while I was in New York I went into an Apple store and played with an iPad, which Click here to continue…
In a previous post I shared with you evidence of my son’s extraordinary ability to read books in the most uncomfortable positions imaginable. Well, he’s at it again. Triumphantly, in this latest version he has succeeded in doing away with the need for a chair completely. So proud.