Welcome to this week’s blog.
Most people have piles of books ready to be re-read in times of need, but Karen Beishuize’s tower is pretty impressive. Do you share any favourites with Karen’s sizeable selection (below)? Do you have comfort reads that you enjoy returning to again and again?
On TLS, short stories seem to be flavour of the week, demonstrating the riches beyond prize-winners such as Alice Munro and George Saunders.
AggieH is enjoying Vanessa Gebbie’s collection, Storm Warning.
The common theme is war and conflict. Each story is independent. The stories range across countries, continents & time. They range from religious inquisitions to various modern wars. Including The Falklands/Malvinas, which made me realise how rarely I’ve come across that war in fiction.
One sneakily dextrous story in particular, Letters from Kilburn, deserves a place in any ‘Best of British’ anthology. It could also be used to teach aspiring writers how to handle voice and narrative development.
Now started a collection of James Kelman’s short stories, The Good Times, which is so far very good, though the current story is a bit oppressively grim. That said, the first two are a little more upbeat, with a lot of humour.
In terms of novels, a few of you enjoyed The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, which won the Pulitzer for Fiction in 2013.
I thought it was an outstanding book and one of those I couldn’t put down. I often think about events portrayed in the book when we get all too seldom glimpses into North Korea.
It’s beautifully written. It’s odd, though. On the one hand, Jun Do’s lack of reaction illustrates his own predicament: the way he mustn’t respond for fear of what might happen; the way he’s internalised his country’s strictures. But it keeps you at a distance. I wished that I cared more about him. On the whole, though, it deserved the Pulitzer, I think.
goodyorkshirelass was disappointed by another winner - Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which recently snapped up the Costa prize for Novel of the Year.
Finally closed the final (?) incarnation of Ursula’s many lives in Kate Atkinson’s admirable, ambitious, highly praised Life After Life.
Oh dear, @Sarah Richards, and the many admirers of this novel, bluntly, I didn’t like it. I’m definitely tramping a lonely path on this one.
Perhaps inspired by the continuous media coverage of NSA and Edward Snowden, George Orwell made three appearances over on Witness this week
Orwell also appears in saadskhan’s pile of books about Burma. Do you have any titles to recommend for Sharman’s reading challenge?
Returning to TLS, there was a hearty discussion about the merits of Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace. AlleinAllein commented that DeLillo’s End Zone was “an obvious and fairly major inspiration for DFW’s Infinite Jest”, which sparked healthy debate.
You’re quite right about End Zone’s influence on DFW. I think it will last better than Infinite Jest, though. And if there’s a funnier book about sport, I don’t know it.
[DeLillo is] very good at cutting away anything extraneous to the novel, brutally so, which makes me question the comparison to Infinite Jest, a sub-Pynchonian novel which I cannot get past a couple of hundred pages of before feeling that life is simply too short.
On Witness, Sabadell shared a guilty secret - a copy of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 borrowed from a colleague 36 years ago! Oh Sabadell, you are that friend.
What books have you borrowed and never given back? Or feel free to name and shame your loved ones – you never know, they might read this column and have a crisis of concience.
Finally, we leave you with a rather intriguing book cover. Lizards in vests? Lady-ponies? Glowing man on what looks like a toilet? This may be an uncelebrated masterpiece.
