Here's the thing. I'm on the fence about how I feel about this book so this review is going to be a bit short and perhaps even a little confused. Even the Dogs is a book about junkies and the harsh realities of their life. The story opens with a very CSI kind of crime scene where the dead body ...
Thought I'd take a cue from a project my sister is doing with song lyrics and photos. It's a good way for me to share more of my photos on this blog. It's also quite fun placing beautiful words on them. Feel free to share but do link the blog.
I suppose the title should very well have been an indicator of the kind of book I was in for but generally speaking I went in to this blind. The book opens beautifully and the first chapter dwells about cities and what they mean which seemed promising of what starts off as a love story set in Europe between an ...
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman is another book that was shortlisted for the Booker this year and one I didn't particularly take to. Set in contemporary urban London, it is the story of Harrison Opuku, a 12 year old migrant boy from Ghana who lives in a council housing estate. Harrison is all wide-eyed wonder at a lot of what ...
The Halloween weekend is about to end but that doesn't mean you can't get your spooky on, particular on a nice cold winter night. Of course there's already several such lists that came out in the build up to Halloween over the past week such as this and this (which happened to include 3 books I planned on mentioning here). ...
In my previous post I mentioned about the debate this year's Man Booker shortlist incited: readability vs Literature/artistic achievement. The thing with these kinds of debates is that not only does it force polarisation but worse, categorization. It makes you put a book in one box or the other, when it could be in several and enjoyed and celebrated as ...
So by now we all know who this year's Booker prize went to. In the event you've missed the big news (where the HELL were you???), it went to Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending. I am right now, not in a position to give my opinion on its worthiness but going by a lot of opinions out there, ...
image creditAdmit it, when you heard that this year's Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Tomas Tranströmer, most of you went 'Tomas who?' right? Well, if you didn't, bravo! I personally had no clue of his existence till the award and if it weren't for the Nobel Prize I'm not sure if I'd ever have stumbled on his work. ...
The Tiny Wife is a strange tale if there ever was one. It's a fantastic (I mean this in the original sense of the word: imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality) fable, that kind of feels like you're on something. It starts off with a bank robbery that isn't like your average bank robbery. The rogue isn't ...
At first as I began reading Coming Up for Air, I kept going, 'this is Orwell???' Perhaps someone who has read Orwell far extensively than just 1984 and Animal Farm may well disagree but by golly those first few chapters felt very un-Orwellian, which is not to say they were bad, just unexpected. In Coming ...
1. Dare to test your spelling skills? http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/spellingchallenge2. V.E.N.T. is an online magazine in Nepal that started this really cool chain poetry challenge called 'Poetry Bug'. The participants each had to write a poem in less than 24 hours which begins with the last word of the poem written by the participant before you on the chain. I joined in ...
All Along the Watchtower “There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no reliefBusinessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earthNone of them along the line know what any of it is worth”“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke“There are many here among us ...
I just love the idea of 'adopting a lost word'. Don't you? http://savethewords.org If you're on the fence about jumping into the Fantasy/Sci-fi genre here's one way to make up your mind which book to start with. A flowchart based on NPR's top 100 Sci-fi and Fantasy books. Follow the arrows, say Yes or No, keep going till you get ...
The Third Pig Detective Agency is not a book I'd usually pick off a shelf during a usual bookshop visit. In fact the book only made my way due to work but I'm glad it did. It's such a fun quirky little story and was ideal reading for me during the weeks leading up to ...
image creditRoald Dahl is beloved for his novels like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda (my personal fave!) but he also had a way with verse. Yesterday was Roald Dahl day and therefore I thought who better to feature as Poet of the Hour than him! My favourite Roald Dahl poems are those twisted ...
I was compelled to take a break from blogging during the final weeks leading up to the dissertation deadline, hence the silence. But blogging business will commence as usual here. First of all though, I must shout out a big THANK YOU to everyone who took my survey and helped me out with the research. Much appreciated. In fact I ...
The coming months are going to be exciting ones with some highly anticipated film adaptations of bestsellers making it to the cinemas. Here are 5 I'm especially keen on seeing!1. One DayOk, so the truth is, I'm dreading this. My last experience with a David Nicholl's book adaptation was Starter For Ten, a book I love LOVED and it was ...
It's was 40 years yesterday since Roger Hargreaves created the first character in his Mr Men series: Mr Tickle. It all started with a question from his son: what does a tickle look like? Now we know. :) Read about how the series was formed here.
1. Planet eBook : eBooks of out-of-copyright Classic Literature for free. Get reading! 2. How many books have I got left before I die?3. SlushPile Hell: the inner-workings of an exceptionally devious Literary agent (hilarious stuff!). Have a great weekend! ...
With Poet of the Hour I'm going to try and put a spotlight on the work of poets that are fairly new to me. However they may not necessarily be new to you, so apologies if this be the case. But hopefully there will be something fresh for you to discover over time. To start ...
