Visceral, learned, and acutely lucid, Bluets is a slim feat of literary innovation and grace, never before published in the UK. Much like Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse, Bluets has passed between lovers in the ecstasy of new love, and been pressed into the hands of the heartbroken. The combination produces a raw, cerebral work devoted to the inextricability of pleasure and pain, and to the question of what role, if any, aesthetic beauty can play in times of great heartache or grief. While its narrator sets out to construct a sort of ‘pillow book’ about her lifelong obsession with the colour blue, she ends up facing down both the painful end of an affair and the grievous injury of a dear friend. Published by Jonathan Cape, 2017 (First published 2009)īluets winds its way through depression, divinity, alcohol, and desire, visiting along the way with famous blue figures, including Joni Mitchell, Billie Holiday, Yves Klein, Leonard Cohen and Andy Warhol.
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He goes out into the South African countryside and lives for a while with his grown daughter, who is farming and taking care of dogs. He refuses to apologize in the terms his academic colleagues require and is let go. It’s about a literature professor named David Lurie who gets fired from his job for abusing, molesting, having sex with (what are the right words here?) a young student of his. It’s set in the South Africa of the 1990s, just after the end of apartheid. This book is the celebrated novel Disgrace (1999) by the Nobel laureate J. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (2003), now resides in Australia. But if you were a white South African of any feeling and intelligence, during apartheid, how could such an idea elude you? South African novelist J. I have no idea whether the author started with a theme in mind, or not, a pronouncement on an idea that was worming its way into his consciousness. Moving along from the discussion of Feb 6, “Theme,” I’d like to suggest possible themes of a novel I’ve reread lately. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.Īny changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for $69 per month.įor cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. For a full comparison of Standard and Premium Digital, click here.Ĭhange the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. This Rubiks Cube, purchased about 1980, is an early example of a puzzle that was developed in 1974 by a Hungarian professor of architecture, Erno Rubik. Premium Digital includes access to our premier business column, Lex, as well as 15 curated newsletters covering key business themes with original, in-depth reporting. In Cubed, Rubik covers more than just his journey to inventing his eponymous cube. Standard Digital includes access to a wealth of global news, analysis and expert opinion. During your trial you will have complete digital access to FT.com with everything in both of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages. Wells, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. He has illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. From 1953 to 1960, he lived in New York City and worked for the Art Department of Doubleday Anchor, illustrating book covers and in some cases adding illustrations to the text. He spent 1944–1946 in the Army at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and then attended Harvard University from 1946 to 1950, where he studied French and roomed with future poet Frank O'Hara.Īlthough he would frequently state that his formal art training was "negligible", Gorey studied art for one semester at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1943, eventually becoming a professional illustrator. He attended a variety of local grade schools and then the Francis W. John Garvey, was a popular 19th century greeting card writer/artist, from whom he claimed to have inherited his talents. Gorey's maternal great-grandmother, Helen St. One of his step-mothers was Corinna Mura, a cabaret singer who had a brief role in the classic film Casablanca. Born in Chicago, Gorey came from a colourful family his parents, Helen Dunham Garvey and Edward Lee Gorey, divorced in 1936 when he was 11, then remarried in 1952 when he was 27. "Full of heart and humor, this fantastical tale is a worthy addition to the wizarding-school genre." - People Magazine on Carry On It’s as if Rowell turned the Harry Potter books inside out, and is showing us the marvelous, subversive stuffing inside." - Time Magazine on Carry On "It’s a brilliantly addictive, genuinely romantic story about teenagers who can’t be neatly sorted into houses, coping with stress and loss and the confusion of just trying to be who they are. It's a powerful, politically minded allegory about sexual, ethnic and class identity - with a heady shot of teenage lust." - New York Times Book Review on Carry On "Rowell imbues her magic with awe and spectacle. Carefully plotted, the book is a classic page-turner right to the open ending which, o frabjous day, promises a sequel to the sequel! One can hardly wait." - Booklist (Starred Review) on Wayward Son "At last! A sequel to Carry On.every fine as fine as the first.overall excellence of a book in which every vista pleases and every character delights. The ending is Happy For Now (HFN) but a very positive one. Whether they will end up in the North with other survivors or back at the World’s Largest Adult Bookstore, it doesn’t really matter. I wouldn’t call it classically romantic, but there is something between Mercury and Gaga that makes you want to cheer. Or werewolves, or vampires or what have you. All of these are fun, ( relatatively) short and, best of all, they are free! If you have others to share, I’d love to see your recs in the comments!ġ) El Presidio Rides North – Domashita Romero, 19K wordsīlurb: In a post-zombie apocalypse world, an almost-madman named Mercury and his newfound companion, Gaga, seek refuge in a RV-turned-mobile-fortress. In this contribution to the Thursday posts I am going to share a few of the original (not fanfiction) short stories that I have found worth reading over the last few years, in the hopes that you’ll enjoy them as well. There is a lot of dross, but there are many gems as well. Five Fun Freebies by Lenalena Fanworks Wrangler | June 25, 2015īesides our beloved Daron, there is a lot of free fiction on the internet. One couple living near a small New England campus "used to trail their fingers, at the start of each new semester, through the columns of the university directory, circling surnames familiar to their part of the world"Īnother faculty wife, who has taken a baby-sitting job to fill her empty afternoons, tells her young charge that everything she cares about remains in India in the home she left behind. Lahiri's people are Indian immigrants trying to adjust to a new life in the United States, and their cultural displacement is a kind of index of a more existential sense of dislocation. Lahiri's prose is so eloquent and assured that the reader easily forgets that "Interpreter of Maladies" is a young writer's first book. Herself as a wonderfully distinctive new voice. N this accomplished collection of stories, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the lives of people on two continents - North America and India - and in doing so announces First Chapter: 'Interpreter of Maladies'.Caleb Crain Reviews 'Interpreter of Maladies' (July 11).'Interpreter of Maladies': Liking America, but Longing for IndiaīOOKS OF THE TIMES 'Interpreter of Maladies': Liking America, but Longing for India Aside from feeling that Cohen, who had retreated to a Zen monastery in California, had more to offer as a performer, there was a pressing practical reason.Ĭohen had discovered he had a critical financial problem his manager would eventually be convicted of embezzling his fortune and he was broke. Reynolds, creator of the Electric Picnic, who had got to know Cohen, encouraged the singer to resume touring. “No airs, no arrogance, just a desire to please his ‘friends’, that’s how he referred to his fans, as his friends. Walsh described the natural grace and humility of the man who had arrived at Lissadell on the morning of the first concert, July 31st, 2010, in a 20-seater mini-bus. But as soon as he said, 'Well, this is a state secret, I am thinking about Leonard Cohen, I've already spoken with him and he likes the idea', that made it completely different, I knew we had to do it." He mentioned July and I thought,: 'Oh no, the height of summer, the house and grounds will have to be closed'. "When the concert promoter, John Reynolds, a close friend of ours, first raised the idea of a concert at Lissadell with me, I was wary. Of that there is no doubt.Įdward Walsh, current owner of the house, saddened by the legendary singer's death, recalls how the two dream concerts became a reality. It was his life-long love of the poetry of Yeats which drew Leonard Cohen to perform at Lissadell House in Co Sligo in 2010. He looked so nervous that she just wanted to console him and take him in her arms until the whole thing was over. I told him that was just a commercial view of our music, and to really shoot us into the stratosphere, that we needed to embrace music tradition in order to free our creativity…”Įlly beamed up at him encouragingly, appearing as if she was listening. “I told him to come in on the second beat, and what does he do? He says that I’m being pretentious and rigid and that I’m not allowing the music to flow through him. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Lucia standing in a wedding dress, smirking, Aaron wrapped around her, gazing lovingly back at Elly as his hands splayed across Lucia’s chest. It seemed that every minute or so, her mind wandered back to Aaron. “You know, Tifah keeps screwing up her cadenza and Gene can’t seem to find the fifth, even if he’s sitting on it…” He kept talking.Įlly stared into his eyes, something that she always found easy, but had a hard time keeping up with his thoughts. The stories are arranged, as they never have been in any other edition, in the order of their periodical publication. Everything is included from his three books of stories, Twice-told Tales (1837, revised 1851), Mosses from an Old Manse (1846, 1854), The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-told Tales (1851) and from his two books of stories for children based on classical myths, A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1852) and Tanglewood Tales (1853)-along with sixteen stories not found in any of these volumes. This Library of America volume offers what no reader has ever been able to find-an authoritative edition of all the tales and sketches of Nathaniel Hawthorne in a single comprehensive volume. Your credit card will not be charged until the book is shipped. You may order a copy now and it will be shipped to you when the reprint has arrived. This title is out of stock and a reprint has not yet been scheduled. |