TV Book Club – Week 3 – Where was he?

Someone tell me quickly why Gok wasn’t there?   I am, of course, wracked with guilt because of all the black  marks we’ve collectively allocated …… so no more of that …. let’s have a knock-out competition instead!  Only the permanent fixtures involved and that includes the editor. Gok, by his absence, the first casualty.  Week 3 was, [...]

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Banging on The New Tin Drum – Part 1

Just needed to get that out of my system as I have been unable to get the song out of my head this week and not just because of the fabulous drums.  I’ll come back to it later. So, here we are.  I hope my fellow Tin Drummers are all present and correct and have enjoyed the first part [...]

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Miss Thing – Nora Chassler

Some people read Hesperus Press, others Pushkin Press, NYRB and others are making their way through the Bloomsbury Group titles.  Add to that list novels published by Two Ravens Press and you’ve got me.  In fact, I’ve resolved to read all 6 of their 2010 fiction list! The thing is you never know what you’re going to get [...]

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TV Book Club Week 2 – How did they do?

As we suspected, no change in format.   I suppose we’ll see the results of our feedback next week – maybe? In the meantime, let’s play again.  Don’t forget to leave a comment saying why you’ve voted as you did. There’s a tussle for the gold star this week.  Dave Spikey’s hasty textual analysis (indeed, what is [...]

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TSS: What my books say about me

As a rule I don’t participate in memes but this one, which I first saw on Simon T’s  Stuck-in-A-Book, is so brilliant that I began reasoning that every rule requires an exception.  However, my books are scattered all over the house, although a couple of rooms have been declared non-book zones by the non-reader.  (He needs some space of [...]

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Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout

Pulitzer Prize Winner 2009 I don’t normally start a review with a discussion of structure, but, when a book is described as “a novel in stories”, it’s a must.  What to expect?  A series of  interconnected stories making up a big picture?  Isn’t everything that’s not a linear narrative?    Is the subtitle there as a warning [...]

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Sinking like a lead balloon ….Channel 4 TV Book Group #1

I’m a bit behind the times here but, if you’re a British bibliophile, there’s a good chance that sometime in the last 24 hours you have tuned into the inaugural edition of Channel 4′s new TV Book Group. There’s an even better one that you didn’t like it. Consensus seems to be that it was [...]

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TSS: Catchup – Adaptations

May I propose that the BBC iplayer (and similar offerings from other channels) is the greatest invention since sliced bread?  That holiday (I’m still uploading pictures – so be patient) was not well-timed, given my liking of literary adaptations.  With my DVD-recorder broken, it was iplayer to the rescue. Small Island – Andrea Levy Auntie, this was a [...]

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Kader Abdolah – The Winners are …

Numbers out of the random.org hat were 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. Congratulations to:  Diane, savidgereads, Justine, Jenny and Melody! Please send your address details to: lizzysiddal at yahoo dot com and I’ll get Canongate on the case right away!

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Gold – Blaise Cendrars

I left my heart in San Francisco ….. During my recent touristy wanderings, I found its hard to imagine that in 1847 San Francisco only had a population of 1,000.  But the Californian Gold Rush increased that to 25,000 within the year and the place hasn’t looked back since.    Not so, John Augustus Sutter, a Swiss emigrant [...]

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