“The thing that particularly intrigued me about Eliot’s voice was its awkward relationship to his studies,” says Ben Masters of the narrator of Noughties.
He arrives at Oxford fairly rough around the edges and quickly finds that his head is being filled with a chaos of knowledge, mostly literary and philosophical, mostly perplexing, and he simply doesn’t know what to do with it. That’s where the voice comes from – a painful mixture of the colloquial and the literary.
I love my eBook reader. But I have to admit, sometimes I hate it a little too. I can take dozens of books on vacation (love), but I can’t read in the bathtub (hate).
The good thing is, there will always be physical books: keep-them-forever hardcovers, gorgeous trade paperbacks, chunky mass market paperbacks, leave-them-out-where-everyone-can-see-them coffee table books.
As conflicted as I am about my eBook reader, I will continue reading on it. Of course I will. And I will continue bringing books home from the book shop and lining my shelves.
Having my novel appear in the U.S. was a real thrill for someone brought up on U.S. television, music, and books.
Writing the novel was a quick but intense process. This seemed necessary – not only did the narrative demand a certain amount of speed and reckless energy, but I could also feel myself as a first-time writer outgrowing it and becoming distracted by other newly forming ideas.
We asked you to tell us what you’re reading these days and you certainly didn’t disappoint!
Find out which books topped your list of recommendations from last week’s Mother’s Day sweepstakes.
“Odd, dark, comical, confusing,” says RIFer Sharon. “It brought to mind Steve Erickson and David Foster Wallace.
The city of San Francisco is a character in the melee, and the most vivid one at that. I need to read it again and make a flow chart!”
Now in paperback wherever books are sold, The Dead Do Not Improve is the anticipated debut from Grantland editor Jay Caspian Kang. Named a #1 Critics Pick by Time Out New York.
Kira Walton shares her favorite literary Moms – from the classic Mrs. Dalloway to recent bestseller Room to debut novel Mother, Mother.
Maybe it’s because I like my novels on the dark side, maybe it’s because these women haunted me long after I turned the last page.
Whatever the reason, these five Moms top my list, and they’re all tragic mothers in literature.
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