Showing 1-16 of 56 Results.
The first great novel of the 21st century uses the sinister beauty of the American Tax Code as a springboard from which to launch into a genuinely serious discussion of the origins and importance of civic responsibility amidst the hazy, blurred stupidity of a country in quick decline. Contrary to many reviews, I don't think it's about boredom, and it's certainly not boring. Another posthumous editor-to-manuscript resuscitation, the book hangs heavy with the clotted spectre of Wallace's suicide, which makes the writing glow all the more painfully through it.
Chris Ware - 02/10/2012 |
I was totally blown away by this collection of the new new new journalism, or however many "news" we’re up to these days. I think I like it as much – at times, even more – than Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never do Again. And that, for me, is saying a lot.
Zadie Smith - 10/08/2012 |
This is a very new book, but already one of my favourites. Karen’s distinguished career has included working with designers, exhibiting her own textile art and teaching students. In this very modern and stylish book, she explains how thrifted finds and ancient sewing and embroidery techniques inform her work. It’s a stylish guide to the power and possibilities of textiles and has made me excited about sewing all over again.
Katie Allen - 04/10/2012 |
A tour de force of empathy, understanding and a multi-hued approach to what makes us what we are, Smith's newly hyper-efficient writing approach here delivers ultra-compact sentences, word-images and impressions that bloom in the mind like paper flowers or concentrated dyes. I can think of no one alive who can so deftly and breathlessly sail amid, around and through the minds of her characters and classes than Smith, and after reading this book, I felt more like I'd visited London than the few times I've actually been there myself.
Chris Ware - 02/10/2012 |
Gustave Flaubert; Manolo Blahnik;... This atmosphere of this powerful novel remains with the reader well after the last page has been turned.
Alexander McCall Smith - 28/07/2011 |
Corbett’s second novel is a haunting high-wire voice novel performed with brio. The on-the-run Traveller Anthony Sonaghan is a remarkable act of consciousness. In his plaintive, touching tone, he eats into your soul: so humble, so sad, so trapped, so true. I love his honest simplicity, his street poetry, his frustrated urge to break out of an enclosed life and how the book remains true to the narrowness of opportunity. The book’s form is its philosophy — that life is a patchwork of mess and regret and trying, but yet somehow we must live on. A contemporary Irish classic.
Paul Lynch - 09/05/2013 |
Vladimir Nabokov; Mary McCarthy |
This was one of the first novels where I remember being genuinely aware of the brilliance of the writing as I was reading it – there are sentences and paragraphs that still take my breath away now, despite the number of times I’ve read it. It’s a long, slow, relentless novel – a beautifully drawn mystery woven through a painfully moving story of class, classics and what it means to belong, carried along by a group of the most unforgettable characters you’ll ever come across.
Will Hill - 15/03/2012 |
Alistair Moffat writes beautifully on history and topography. Here he leads us through that moist entrancing of Italian regions, Tuscany.
Alexander McCall Smith - 28/07/2011 |
EMILY BRONTË: Wrote my favourite female character – Cathy in Wuthering Heights - and is also responsible for the first ghost scene I ever read. There was no sleeping for almost a week when Cathy tapped on Heathcliff’s window in the middle of the night and it’s a scene I return to again and again to experience the joy of taut prose and terror.
Sara Sheridan - 19/06/2012 |
Roger Scruton is a philosopher who writes on a wide range of subjects within aesthetics. His observations on art and music are profound and stated with great clarity.
Alexander McCall Smith - 28/07/2011 |
James Joyce; Terence Brown Late in his life an old friend suggested to Joyce that this was his best book, and after a hesitation Joyce agreed. Of course, it depends what you mean by ‘best’.
John Banville - 18/06/2012 |
John Vernon Lord; Janet Burroway This book is my all time favourite picture book. It was first published in 1972 (the year I was born) and I still own my childhood copy complete with my name written inside with multi coloured felt tips.
The Giant Jam Sandwich's rhyming text is the tale of a village invaded by wasps (can you guess how they solve the problem?). It's brilliant to read out loud with witty and intricate illustrations. As a child I used to spend hours poring over the details and loved looking for the three men who were chased from the village by wasps and turned up in subsequent pages.
Emily Gravett - 10/11/2011 |
I am still using my 40-year-old copy, from which I learned to cook. I can do their Orange Tarragon Chicken with my eyes shut – and it’s actually healthy when you forget to buy soured cream so must substitute yoghurt. I am given the strawberry Pavlova every Christmas – yummy.
Lindsey Davis - 20/03/2012 |
Paul Duncan; Bengt Wanselius; Erland... Second in line from the better-selling Stanley Kubrick Archives, I actually prefer this volume because the filmmaker's life's work is so much messier, complicated, unstrung and confusing -- while his art is just as precise and masterful. Why Taschen decided to stick with the Kubrickian cover lettering is a little confusing, though easily overlooked for the treasure trove of material within, which
Chris Ware - 02/10/2012 |
Henry James; Philip Horne Hard to choose between this and one of the last, great novels, but The Portrait of a Lady shows James in all his subtle mastery.
John Banville - 18/06/2012 |