Category: Literature

Last night I joined many others to see Lenny Henry in conversation with Neil Gaiman. A very entertaining evening it was too even if I didn’t stay around to join an enormous queue and get a book signed. Here’s what Gaiman himself says about the evening (with links on from there).

I popped along to this after work, and was reminded once again that I don’t read enough SF. The discussion was getting very interesting before I had to leave for my next busy Monday night engagement.

I know I must be thinking like a complete snob, but I can’t be the only one who’s disappointed by the number of adults they’re seeing reading the new Harry Potter on the tube. Last night I saw a couple sitting together each reading their own copy. I think the worst thing is that some…

One of the most remarkable things I noticed on my recent visit to America (about which, I really really will write something soon. Not that there are any readers here on tenterhooks or anything), was the fact that The Da Vinci Code is not out in paperback in America. This is a book that became…

The more alert reader may have spotted that my last couple of book reviews have now become adorned with tasteful Amazon ads. I should explain. Obviously this site isn’t quite one to put The London Review of Books to shame just yet, but I do like to read books (and to be honest, I like…

While I’m on the subject of comics, I was in Music Zone the other day, and they had The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones in hardback available for a bargain £4.97! I immediately snapped up a copy, despite owning the first published collections and the original comics. (They also had Slaine the King for £2.97…

Today’s the first of November and the start of NaNoWriMo – or National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you’ve got to write a novel of at least 50,000 words by the end of the month – as featured on this Evening’s Front Row. I’ve not written so much as a short story since…

This has come as a bit of a bolt from the blue. He was only 51, and a very talented performer and writer. Disdainful though I sometimes am of that category of books, I do like reading them.

Memo to self: Really must read some James Joyce at some point.

Waterstones has a new promotion in store at the moment, in which their staff have chosen their 150 favourite books which are displayed prominently in store, and press adverts highlight individual books accompanied by specific recommendations by staff members from around the country. (A brief aside here – I’m really not convinced that this is…

Not exactly staggering news. But it seems that some authors have been writing favourable reviews of their own books on Amazon. Well there’s a thing! Who’d have thought it. And other writers are giving positive reviews to books written by friends. Well that happens all the time in the press anyway, so I wouldn’t get…

The Guardian yesterday had an astonishing account from Mende Nazer about her life as a member of the Nuba tribe in Sudan, and being captured into slavery. Finally she managed to escape when she was working in Britain. The full account doesn’t seem to be up on the main Guardian site, but it’s an extract…