James Walton is The Spectator’s TV critic
T.C. Boyle is not one of those authors who can be accused of writing the same novel again and again. Over the past 30 years, his subject matter has ranged from 18th-century Africa to the California of the future, from Mexican immigration to the sex life of Frank Lloyd Wright. Even so, what has tended
Starting with Lemprière’s Dictionary — an unexpected worldwide hit in the early 1990s — Lawrence Norfolk has never been a man for the slim novella. Complicated of plot and huge of cast, his books generally serve up a combination of almost obsessively researched history and somewhat arcane mythology. Now, 12 years since his last one,
Sometimes it seems as if Ruth Rendell’s heart just isn’t in all that killing any more. Certainly, her latest book, The Saint Zita Society (Hutchinson, £12.99), works best as a portrait of modern London, sharing many of the characteristics of novels like John Lanchester’s Capital and Sebastian Faulks’s A Week in December. The murders, when
James Kelman is famously not a man fond of making concessions — whether to bourgeois interviewers, literary fashions, traditional punctuation or his own readers. Sure enough, his latest novel comes in familiar form: a continuous, chapterless slab of interior monologue from a working-class Glaswegian struggling against the un-remitting toughness of what a character in his
The case for Richard Ford isn’t hard to make. Ever since his breakthrough novel The Sportswriter in 1986, his multi-award-winning fiction has combined an unsparing intelligence with an unashamed high-mindedness about what literature can achieve — nothing less than a careful exploration of the best way to live. In some hands, this moral sense might
‘Poets don’t count well,’ says Ian Duhig in his contribution to Jubilee Lines — an assertion unexpectedly confirmed by Carol Ann Duffy’s preface. Admittedly, if the book did contain one poem for every year since 1952, there’d be an annoyingly untidy 61. Even so, Duffy’s declaration that the Queen was crowned ‘on 2 June 1953,
Azazeel comes to Britain as the winner of the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, inevitably known as the ‘Arabic Booker’. It’s also been both a source of controversy and an unexpected popular hit in Youssef Ziedan’s homeland. According to the translator’s afterword, within months of publication, ‘piles of the novel appeared on the pavements
If there’s anything full-time novelists hate more than a celebrity muscling in on their turf, it’s the celebrity doing such a good job that it seems as if anybody could write fiction. Happily for the pros, this isn’t a problem with Briefs Encountered. Not only is the book full of obvious flaws, but it also
The British Library’s ‘Spoken Word’ series, drawing heavily on the BBC archives, has already shown quite a range — from Tennyson’s famously crackly reading of ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ to Scott Fitzgerald declaiming a speech from Othello. Now, it moves on to the short story and, despite the curious decision to include two tales
In some ways, you’ve got to hand it to Craig Raine. Two years ago, after a distinguished career as a poet and all-round man of letters, he published his first novel — and received a series of reviews that, as Woody Allen once put it, read like a Tibetan Book of the Dead. According to
Angus Macqueen is a film-maker whose CV includes The Death of Yugoslavia, Gulag, Cocaine and a slightly odd period commissioning the likes of The Secret Millionaire as Channel 4’s head of documentaries. These days, happily, he’s back making his own stuff — and BBC2’s Chilean Miners: 17 Days Buried Alive was another gem. Commentary was
Sebastian Barry’s novels, I’m beginning to think, are a bit like that famous illusion of the two faces and a vase. Most of the time you’re reading them, they seem to be wrenchingly powerful and heartfelt depictions of suffering and grief. Yet, it doesn’t take much of a squint for them suddenly to look like
Did you know that on the Central Line’s maiden journey to Shepherd’s Bush, one of the passengers was Mark Twain? Or that The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Sign of Four were both commissioned by the same publisher at the same London dinner? Or that Harrods dropped the apostrophe from its name in 1921,
If you know anything at all about Cynthia Ozick — an officially accredited grande dame in America, less famous in Britain — you won’t be surprised to hear that her new novel is influenced by Henry James. If you know anything at all about Cynthia Ozick — an officially accredited grande dame in America, less
At Last is the fifth — and, it’s pretty safe to say, most eagerly awaited — of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels. At Last is the fifth — and, it’s pretty safe to say, most eagerly awaited — of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels. The first three, now called the Some Hope trilogy,
Stand-up comedians: is there anything they can’t do? Not only do they make up a huge proportion of chat-show guests — and of chat-show hosts — they also present Horizon, give us guides to the night sky, utterly dominate panel shows and regularly pop up on Question Time. Recently, they even set up their own
Chapman’s Odyssey became quite famous before it was published, largely because it nearly wasn’t. Chapman’s Odyssey became quite famous before it was published, largely because it nearly wasn’t. Paul Bailey’s long and distinguished career, complete with two appearances on the Booker shortlist, apparently counted for nothing last year when he was reduced to what he
In the recent EastEnders cot-death controversy, both sides behaved pretty much as you’d expect. The BBC-bashers denounced the ‘offensive’ suggestion that grieving mothers routinely steal other people’s babies. In the recent EastEnders cot-death controversy, both sides behaved pretty much as you’d expect. The BBC-bashers denounced the ‘offensive’ suggestion that grieving mothers routinely steal other people’s
How Music Works opens with a blizzard of reassurances. First, John Powell establishes his ordinary-bloke credentials by means of a slightly tortured analogy between many people’s attitude to music (‘pleasure without understanding’) and the time he went to the chip shop after the pub and realised he couldn’t tell the Chinese owner exactly what gravy
If we didn’t already know that Milan Kundera is one of Craig Raine’s literary heroes, then it wouldn’t be too hard to work it out from his first novel. If we didn’t already know that Milan Kundera is one of Craig Raine’s literary heroes, then it wouldn’t be too hard to work it out from