Books

Without joie de vivre

  • 5 October 2005
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J M Coetzee's latest novel, Slow Man, reveals a man who appears without joy, yet the book is beautifully composed, deeply thought and wonderfully written. By Ward Just

News from the Stormfront

  • 5 October 2005
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News from the Stormfront
Hurricane Katrina has been to the forefront of the weblogs this week. We thank the Tel...

There's life after Lady Chablis

  • 28 September 2005
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The new novel from John Berendt – the man who brought Savannah, Georgia to readers all over the world in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – is set in Venice and based on the mysterious fire that erupted inside the grand old Venetian opera house in 1996

As music and splendour

  • 28 September 2005
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Katie O'Brien's last novel, As Music and Splendour, has been republished. Review by Eamon Maher

Book Notes: Insider News

  • 28 September 2005
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That Man Booker Prize Again Critics and reviewers have struggled to discuss Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, second favourite for this year's Man Booker prize next month. This is primarily due to the twist in the plot, one that unlike a thriller is slowly revealed – even a hint at the main thrust of the tale will lessen your enjoyment of the revelation. The reader finds out what's going on at the same pace and time as Ruth, Tommy & Karen, the children attending Hailsham boarding school who grow to adulthood in the story.

Culture Warriors

  • 22 September 2005
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Shortlisted in this year's Booker
prize and now being compared to EM Forster,
Zadie Smith's latest novel, On Beauty, is described as 'not
beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that
took the place of both qualities – something best described as a
profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that
she encountered in her path through life'. By Frank Rich

Last Tango

  • 22 September 2005
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Marlon Brando co wrote Fan-Tan in 1970. Fan-Tan, like Brando "is coarse, perverse, idiosyncratic, unapologetically behind the times". Joe Queenan reviews it and recommends it as
a good read

Since Adam's Fall

  • 15 September 2005
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Daniel Swift looks at a new book that takes a tour in search of ecumenical understanding between Christianity, Islam and Judaism

The codless seas

  • 15 September 2005
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Newfoundland and Labrador have syddered much hardship, most recently the disappearance of the cod industry, a mainstay of livelihood. And yet John Gimlette's beautifully written book is neither dark nor depressing writes Elizabeth Royte

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