Tag: english classics

World cup of writing – team ENGLAND

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THE ENGLAND WRITERS TEAM –

GOALKEEPER – CHARLES DICKENS ,the keeper on the whole is a giant and has generally a lot of experience and a pair of safe hands ,so my No1 is mr dickens are greatest novel writer a man of the people his books still ring  as true today as the day they were written .so dickens is our David James .

RIGHT BACK – W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM ,now like keeper in england the right back tends to stick around in the team from Kenny Samson to Gary Neville ,so Maugham seems an ideal fit not a huge star but in a lot of ways he has huge influence ,he is books were beautifully written and his autobiography is one of the best guides to writing ever written by a successful writer .

CENTRE BACK 1-PATRICK HAMILTON ,now there are two types of centre backs the graceful and the bruiser ,now bruiser suits Hamilton he wrote about dark bars and rough nights in seedy london so he is our enforcer at the back .our terry butcher of writers

CENTRE BACK 2-H G WELLS , the godfather of modern sci-fi and a great storyteller he wrote books on a lot of subjects and has influence most sci-fi writers and george Orwell whois own name is an homage to H G so Wells is are graceful intelligent defend the writers Rio or ledley king  .

LEFT BACK -PATRICK NEATE ,left backs tend to be fanciful and stylish ,so Patrick Neate seems a perfect fit a writer with playful stories and a real passion for the written word he started book slam who’s podcasts i listen to ,so our writing Ashley Cole is mr Neate .

RIGHT WINGER- WILL SELF ,now our last right-winger was Beckham so will self fits him perfectly a ambassador for the written word with real flair and a ability to keep in the public eye ,from Dorian to the book of dave Will always impresses with his clever word man ship just like Beckham .

DEfENSIVE MIDFIELDER – Agatha Christie the mistress of crime would be great as see had a wonderful eye for detail and ability to solve a case so like Barry or Hargreaves an ability to keep control of the game is essential with put showing off and that is just what Agatha did in her wonderful books spinning the story without being to showy

PLAYMAKER-J G BALLARD – now our lampard has to be Ballard he was the master of the spectacular stories from a interpretations of his Saigon childhood and war to environmentalism in drowned world ,consumerism and high-class living in super Cannes ,JG books where fast paced and wonderfully weaved and that is what a playmaker should do so Ballard is the writing Lampard .

LEFT WINGER – GEORGE ORWELL ,now who else could i pick the troubled england position by a writer that troubled minds with his forward thinking and ability to pass politics to everyman through his novels ,so our Arraon Lennon is Orwell a man who always wrote from the heart and this is what we hope Lennon does .

STRIKER -IAIN MCEWAN now he is our tall writer always dependable like McEwan his writing is spectacular but he is consistent he has wrote books that sell well for lit books his latest is his best in a while ,so the writing peter crouch is McEwan tall thin and always there .

SOLAR

STRIKER -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE now our bard fits Rooney perfectly the plays he wrote still have great meaning ,they sum up england to a tee and ask any one name an english writer they ll say Shakespeare ask any football fan name an english player nowadays they’ll say Wayne Rooney our goal threat and one of the best players england has ever produced .

MANAGER -ITALO CALVINO ,like our current manager a master of tactics the italian writer Calvino wrote great plots and clever words play and in a number of different way just like Fabio Capello seems to be doing at the moment .

so there is my 11 hope it helps non football fans understand a bit there other halfs passion and maybe why people love the game so much ..

C’MON C’MON TEAM ENGLAND !!!!!!!!!!

THE MEMORIES –

loads but here we go in no order really ,Beckham scoring against Greece to help us qualify in 2006 a wonderful goal that set dreams alight ,linaker goals in Italia 90 ,Gazza tears at the same world cup ,Pearce missing then scoring penalties Keegan missing out an early memory ,Platt performances in 90 ,Beckham in 2006 like a man restored after the disgrace of being sent off .all back to new orders world in motion or three lions from baddle and skinner .

JUST MAYBE

persephone reading week cheerful weather for a wedding by julia strachey

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Julia Strachey

Notes – 

Julia strachy was on the fringes of the bloomsbury group she was a cousin to the biograph Lytton Strachey  part of the famous stachey family,she was published by hogarth press orginally that was connected to the group  she also published another novel twenty years after this .It was book 38 in persephone releases . 

The book –  

The book follows dolly the main charcaters wedding day to the hon Owen Bigham , we start with the morning nerves and her brothers frolicking about downstairs on the sofa . 

Robert’s black shoes sticking on the arm of the sofa were crossed one over the other , and revealed a gleam of emerald between the shoes and the trousers . 

  

her mother flaps as the day progresses nerves run high drinks are taken to calm nerves ex’s appear Joseph that confides he is still in love with dolly  and aunts are abound ,In what seems a typical if a little fraught at times wedding day in  the thirties . 

My view – 

I was looking forward to reading this book and was disappoint it oozes the era ,Dolly’s brothers and the aunts made me think of Woodhouse and Wooster with his aunts .But this book is slightly darker than them ,Julia had wonderful observations and great dialogue in this book .The book is wonderfully produce with an elegant front cover and nice inner leaves .I m a little disappoint that this was the only book i ve got to read for Persephone week , but due to work and home commitments i haven’t had the time .This was a wonderful book to republish a lost gem from a writer connected to so many other writers . 

Links – 

the life of Julia Strachey – a 2 page pdf file 

all that glistens is it gold

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I have Been pondering if all that glistens is gold ,this last few months for the first time in my life .I ve been mainly reading new books as in just out .I ve enjoyed a good many ,my question is how many of these books will be here in twenty years how many will stand the test of time ,what makes a book stand the test of time .Do writers have vogues ? Does the quality of the writing make a difference ,i ve a number of books from Persephone and capuchin both who publishers books that have fallen by the wayside the ones i ve got and have read all seem great books .Most of my life i ve read books that have been out for a while read many by the writers i love Burgess ,Doyle ,Maugham ,Roth ,Updike,Mailer Kerouac,Burroughs most of these have stood the test of time .so the question is –

what makes a book last ?

 

solar by ian mcewan

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SOLAR

This came to me via Sarah at the bookrabbits .It easily the most anticipated books so far this year McEwan is a Marmite writer .The book follows Michael Beard a nobel winner in his early life after refining a Einstein idea .the book structure  falls in to three parts following Beard over the new millenium we first meet him 2000 with a falling marriage and embarking on a trip to the arctic with artist and fellow scientists like McEwan did him self ,the middle section finds him back in england on committees and having affairs and with an increasing waist line .the final section in the near present dat finds beard in america still having affairs ,eating loads and being accused of idea theft after stealing an idea for a photo cell . In this book McEwan has come up with one of the most dislikeable characters i ve ever read a cheater ,lazy ,greedy and liar of a man ,some one who had great promise early in his career but has gone down the wrong path .Now I know a lot of people are going to dislike this book but i loved it i think McEwan has manage to update what was the morality play of years past and transferred it to encapsulate the current state of the world with beard being modern society using all the resources without a thought for the future .the chaos on the ship in the arctic reflects the arguments of nations in my opinon .If you like science you ll love this .

He belonged to that class of men -vaguely  unpreposseing ,often bald ,short , fat , clever – wno are were unnaccountably attractive to certain beautiful women . or he believed he was ,and thinking seem to make it so ….

the opening of solar and meeting  Beard .

 

have you read this ?

did you like books about science ?

the man who knew everything by tom stacey

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This is one of Capuchin classics reissues a book from the 1988 when it was originally published as “deadline ” and was made in to a tv movie featuring John Hurt .the book itself is set over the fifties and follows Granville Jones who is an old fashion fleet street reporter who has ended up in a middle eastern emirate ,Jones is a drinker the sort of report that likes to spend as much time in the bar as he does his typewriter .Jones is good friends within the current Emir ,but as with most things in this time the emirs position is in jeopardy as the emirate has a new found wealth thanks to the discovery of oil ,this also leads to a change in jones as a forgotten man to some one that is now in the centre of a major news story .the major themes in this story are empire britains diminishing strength the growth of oil money and new wealth ,also a man struggling or unwilling to come to terms with the post war world and its new media ,Stacey’s writing is journalistic and sparse not word is wasted .the book is only 145 pages long but feels much longer than that .

this particular friday lunch time Jones found himself unable to recognise the people with young McCulloch at the Darwish bar .They weren’t the self-assured young bankers whose company McCulloch favoured.the mail clerk handed jones a cable with his airmailed newspapers and the rest of his correspondence .he settled at one of the window tables and as Abdullah brought him his cold Tuborg and chilled glass he was opening his cable………….

a scene from early on in the book that brought back memories of ice-cold in  Alex the film

have you read any Capuchin classics ?

 

 

A PILE OF SELF -WILL SELF

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PILE OS SELF

 

 Will self has been one of my favourite writers since the mid 90;s .When i read the quantity theory of insanity ,where will’s dark sometimes disturbing narrative style shone wonderfully through in a brilliant collection of short stories .One could say i was hooked straight away and as you can see over the years have got most of his short stories and novels ,eagerly watch self’s style develop over the years from realistic if dark in the early days to surreal and deeply satirical works of recent years .a natural heir to Ballard and even Wyndham ,even further back to the works of swift .You are transported to worlds whether in  the future or in a parrell time to our own .

the books picture are my favourites and span will’s career from the early grey area collection of short stories show ing the many facets of london life ,through Dorian a great novel that updates Oscar Wildes Dorian gray to the eighties and  modern art an inspired retelling of a classic ,great apes is in a similar vein a man awakes to find himself the only human in a world of apes ,which is a distant cousin to swifts Gulivers travels and a brillant piece of satire with its insights in to modern  life ,till the last novel i got the book of Dave a mans musings found and turned in to a bible in a broken future England .

my signed first edition of dr M .

Have you read Will Self have you a favourite ?

JERUSALEM BY PATRICK NEATE

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 This is Neate’s fifth novel,and his most accomplished in my opinion ,a many head story that moves back forward in time and across the world ,a study in what we are as English people where we ve come from and where we re going .Neate is a wonderful storyteller seamlessly weaving the stories together like a master weaver ,interweaving the strands of the story ,Neate performing tales comes through as the founder of bookslam ,you can imagine section of this book being read aloud .

 The story itself is three tales from present and past set in England ,South aArica and a make-believe african state ,the two stories in africa are separate by a century the first set in Boer war following a solider involved ,the later story set in a African state similar to some of the dictatorship in the recent past and present-day ,it involves the imprisonment of an english man as he falls foul of the whims of said dictator ,i feel these show the changing view of how we perceive ourselves and the african perceive us now and then it shows how the our place in the world has changed .the third story follows Preston a entrepreneur a child of Thatcher and Blair an urban music fan and label owner like a modern-day Anthony h Wilson it follows his rise and shows what happens when you reach the top when he becomes embroiled in a scandal over the song Jerusalem .elsewhere we encounter the quaint side of english culture with bushy and morris men .

“what’s this ? Preston asked . I think its Jerusalem ,innit ? I know that i mean what is it ? who is it ? Errol checked his i-phone .He shrugged .geezer calls himself nobody . Preston leant forward and started to nod to the music as the vocal dissolved in to mc’s rhymes .he took off his sunglasses . he said track him down , would you ? Errol said sure ,tubbs

have you read Patrick Neate ,have you a favourite ?

do you like books with intertwined stories ?