Paul Abbott

Thursday

Paul Abbott

The great shroud of the sea rolled on – reading Moby-Dick

From our UK edition

mobydickbigread.com is a website. It adapts Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick into an online audiobook. The content is rich: what tech executives might call “trendily interactive”, in that there are Facebook groups, hipster cultural events, academic podcasts, and so on. The Guardian is heavily involved. David Cameron, Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and Simon Callow have all “jumped aboard”. There will be a “Whale-Fest” in Brighton. This kind of thing doesn't have to be your cup of tea, to admit at least that the effort is genuine. It is a fanzine for Ahab-enthusiasts, self-described as 'an online version of Melville’s magisterial tome'.

Sunday

Paul Abbott

Wanted: A British comic book industry

From our UK edition

Viz magazine. The Beano. Judge Dredd. 2000AD... But that's about it. Why doesn’t Britain have a comic book industry? Try an extended metaphor: Think of all English literature, laid out like a vast library. Ten thousand Romantic novels by Trollope. Cupboards crammed with textbooks on Shakespeare. Ubiquitous thumbed paperbacks of Harry Potter, Narnia, the Lord of the Rings. And enough soft porn to fill an Olympic swimming pool. But the shelf - if there was even a shelf - of British comic books would be nasty, brutish, and short. Why is this? Are we somehow less talented than our square-jawed American cousins? Certainly, there is no shortage of appetite here in Blighty. Our sales figures are positively stellar.

Tuesday

Paul Abbott

Of Masters and men

From our UK edition

The President of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron MP, has spent the last few weeks pre-empting Sir John Vickers’ report on banking reform. Tough legislation to split up the banks must now be passed “before the next election”, he insists: it is “right for the country”, and “must happen as soon as possible”. Reading Masters of Nothing - the new book from Matthew Hancock and Nadhim Zahawi on the banking crisis - the ex-NUS officer may have found some unlikely allies in the new crop of Conservative MPs. Although there is still a debate about the timing of reform, Masters of Nothing is an authoritative and scathing critique of financial services, and its conclusions are broadly similar to those of Mr Farron. The City is failing, it argues.