Hanif Kureishi’s Relentlessly Revealing Memoir “How a tragic accident helped the author find his rebellious voice again” In December 2022, at age 68, writer Hanif Kureishi fell onto a hard floor in Rome and woke up a tetraplegic. Hillary Kelly visited Kureishi in London in December 2024 and here describes that visit and comments on […]
This month’s exercise begins with a classic – Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. first degree Since the starting point is a book I’ve never had even the slightest inclination to read, I’ll take the easiest approach for my first degree, repetition of a keyword from the title: The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura
6 Degrees of Separation: Danger! Water! Read More »
Update on Comments Glitch The cause of the problem has been traced to Jetpack. Jetpack support has informed me that “this is an issue that our development team is aware of and working to resolve. It will likely be fixed in the next version of Jetpack in early January.” So that’s where we are. In
Neuromancer: the birth of an SF classic “Author William Gibson and his editor, Malcolm Edwards, recall how a seminal SF work came to publication” Neuromancer came out just as I was seriously making the transition from academic reading to popular reading. I’d read almost no science fiction at the time and was curious to try
Between the Book Club and BookTok: Community Reading in Montreal Adam Christopher Hill tells the story of Page Break, a weekly gathering at De Stiil bookstore in Montreal. Page Break is a time when readers come together, give up their phones, and read silently for an hour. This approach to reading differs from most book
What Fiction Writing Shares With Psychotherapy “Emily Howes Considers the Similarities Between Two Therapeutic Practices” I have a curious double professional identity. I am both a novelist and a therapist; both a teller of tales, and a listener to them. I spend my days in my own imagination or settling into the deepest corners of
Too Enjoyable to Be Literature What a wonderful short piece! It’s only four paragraphs long (one of which is a block quotation), but it so aptly expresses a reader’s joy of recognizing and appreciating a literary work. That literary work is Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. And Helen Garner has the same
The book is not so much a triumphant tale of overcoming adversity as a howl of fury at the injustice of it all. —the Guardian In this candid memoir Viola Davis details her journey from desperate childhood poverty in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to becoming one of the finest actors working today. “I learned from
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queer indie and self-published books to read during pride month The indie and self-published community offers a great range of identities and diversification that you often can’t find in traditionally published books, but because of people’s prejudice against these books, or because of their laziness in trying to find them, indie books often go unnoticed.
This month we start with Elizabeth Day’s exploration of friendship, Friendaholic. Here’s part of the Goodreads description of the book: “ As a society, there is a tendency to elevate romantic love. But what about friendships? Aren’t they just as – if not more – important? So why is it hard to find the right
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