April 11, 2011
Authors
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We all have an author that we can go back to time and time again when we want a well-crafted story that just can’t fail. For me, that author tends to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Although there are other authors who often impress me more (Nabokov, Faulkner etc.), Marquez has never let me down.
Marquez’s novels and novellas are funny, clever, undemanding, sensitive and rich in terms of language. These are attributes that make his work timeless and the fact that he has written such a healthy collection of books means you can visit something new each time rather than returning to your well-thumbed favourite too often.
I’ve still not got through Marquez’s entire back catalogue and I’ve been reading his work for several years. Eight books in, I’m still not bored.
April 8, 2011
Authors
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John Kennedy Toole committed suicide after a frustrating struggle to get his novel A Confederacy of Dunces published. It was a real waste because the novel in question is an absolute masterpiece and we have Toole’s mother to thank that it ever made it into print.
Toole’s mother carried on pushing to get his work published for years after his death and as soon as A Confederacy of Dunces was finally published it became an instant classic. Toole’s tragic death makes reading the book a bittersweet experience for his fans.
Rather than dwell on the tragedy, we can be thankful that we’ve Toole’s timeless comic leading character Ignatius J. Reilly to console us.
April 7, 2011
Book Reviews
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I’ve just finished reading Kingsley Amis’ classic campus comedy Lucky Jim. What is immediately refreshing about this book is that it has such a happy ending. Most classics, modern or otherwise, fall into the category of the fairly bleak – even if they are essentially comic novels.
Not so Lucky Jim. It’s easy to come away from the book with a smile on your face, even if you do have to get through some fairly excruciating scenes on the way.
It’s not difficult to see Kingsley’s influence on his son Martin Amis in the flair of his prose and his knack for rendering unmistakably British characters. This book is definitely worth a read for those who want something light-hearted to go with all the doom and gloom on their book shelves.