Home add your blog Archives Search Contact RSS FEED

This site is an rss/xml news reader containing our favorite feeds. All articles are the copyrighted material of the blogs that wrote them.

post from on 04 July 2009 01:23:01 PM. ©

JK Rowling Contributes to New Kids' Night In Three Book for Charity Due Out in October[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/

Digg this

post from on 04 July 2009 01:23:00 PM. ©

HBO First Look at HBP: New Snape and Unbreakable Vow, Comedy Quidditch More[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/

Digg this

'Snuff' by Chuck Palahniuk

post from Reading matters on 04 July 2009 12:38:50 PM. © Reading matters

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 208 pages; 2009. Review copy. I'll be perfectly frank: I did not expect to like Chuck Palahniuk's latest paperback release because of the sordid subject matter. I wasn't sure I would be entirely comfortable reading about an aging porn star attempting to break the world record for serial fornication with 600 men on camera. But Palahniuk delivers such an extraordinarily funny story that you can't help but laugh your way through it. And before long you realise that this isn't a novel glorifying pornography. If anything it sends it up, pokes fun at the ridiculous nature of it and highlights how warped you would have to be to participate in a gang-bang that is being filmed for public consumption. The story is told from the perspectives of three men - Mr 72, Mr 137 and Mr 600 - as they wait in the queue for their...

Read The Full Article:
http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmatters/2009/07/snuff-by-chuck-palahniuk.html

Digg this

post from on 04 July 2009 12:24:16 PM. ©

Dan Radcliffe Talks Filming the Events on the Tower and More (Updated with Scans)[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/

Digg this

The Book Group: our first meeting

post from Reading matters on 04 July 2009 10:37:41 AM. © Reading matters

You may recall that early last month I wrote a post entitled Calling all London book bloggers. Want to join our book group? I was essentially responding to Simon's plea to start a relaxed, friendly group in central London. Well, I received a few emails from interested parties, as did Simon, who also managed to rope in some of his friends, and together we hosted our first book group meeting on Thursday evening. There were 11 brave souls in attendance, and over several convivial drinks, we took it in turns to share our favourite books with one another as a kind of getting-to-know-you session. Ever the dutiful reporter, I took along a notebook and jotted down the titles that were named (long-time readers of this blog will automatically know which one of these I chose): Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier My Brother Jack by George Johnston I Capture the Castle...

Read The Full Article:
http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmatters/2009/07/the-book-group-our-first-meetin
g.html

Digg this

post from on 04 July 2009 09:23:50 AM. ©

LA Times Feature on Dan Radcliffe[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/

Digg this

BOOK: The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

post from an adventure in reading on 04 July 2009 08:41:00 AM. © an adventure in reading

The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro, 350 pages

celebrate the author; what's in a name: building; 3rd Canadian Book Challenge

My first Alice Munro book. I liked the way the short stories were connected, much like in Olive Kitteridge, with recurring characters. Munro has crafted a partially fact, partially fiction history of her family. She takes the past, beginning in Ettridge Valley, Scotland, and builds a possible story of the Laidlaws coming to America. The stories are based on legend, and her imagination. The second half of the book is ficitonalized memoir of Alice Munro's life, and her family. She states in the introduction that the stories are not true - "And the part of this book that might be called family history has expanded into fiction, but always within the outline of a true narrative."

Very readable, a version of one family's Canadian history, but with general family relationships.

Alice Munro, born July 10, 1931 was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in 2009 for her body of written work. "Generally regarded to be one of the world's foremost writers of fiction, her stories focus on the human condition and relationships through the lens of daily life."the Bookword game is taking suggestions at my blog - come by and play

Read The Full Article:
http://raidergirl3-anadventureinreading.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-view-from-castl
e-rock-by-alice.html

Digg this

Source of Lit - Unsaid - Brian Kubarycz

post from Emerging Writers Network on 04 July 2009 08:24:00 AM. © Emerging Writers Network

Brian Kubarycz - Six Pieces:

These six pieces run the full gamut, don't they? One page stories, alonger short story, a couple of poems. There were two things thatcontinued to jump out at me - his brief inclusions of Christian references, andhis vocabulary, which had me thinking in terms of writing from long ago. Specifically this second point, usage of words or phrases like:

"Crouching on shore, my skin now rubicon, on came the nights. Spacecompacted me, the compass shrank down to a pit of iron ice;" ("Puerto delSol")

"The very book of death has no horn but doth rise up, vermiform,eyeless." ("Auspex")

"Superintending the edge of this world, waiting for veined temples todescend, I plunge into the wreckage and I search for my lost kind."("Kuklops")

Is there something specific about the writing of Kubarycz that grabs yourattention, or is it perhaps a combination of various aspects?

David:

You're a close reader, Dan. Anyallusion to Christianity in Kubarycz's work is no mistake. Specifically, anyallusion to Mormonism, as Kubarycz was raised a Latter-Day Saint who nowteaches at the University of Utah. But know this: Kubarycz is no saint, Latter-Day orotherwise. The mind of his heart is too openly independent to be that of asaint. He sees too clearly to let his way of seeing be compromised by externaldogma. He's the one the saints might envy and weep for simultaneously.

Let me share a quote from Harold Bloom's book, The American Religion: "A major American poet, perhaps one called a Gentile by the Latter-Day Saints,some time in the future will write their early story as the epic it was."Well, Mr. Bloom is an extremely smart man who sometimes offers his readers somefar-fetched notions, but I agree with this statement, and to a certain extent Ibelieve that Brian Kubarycz is the poet he speaks of.

Kubarycz may never write the epic foreseen byBloom, but already he has written what one might call an authenticated Mormonmythology. Kubarycz bears witness unflinchingly. He takes the stance of aMormon who is no longer a believer, and gives us writing I believe couldnot be written by anyone raised otherwise. I also believe his pages could nothave been written by a Mormon who remained loyal to the fold.

Kubarycz's content is one of insightful religiouscontention. Lingually, he presents many discernibly subtle moments. Here is asentence from "On the Mountain", the first story he ever submitted tome for Unsaid:

"He neededleaving for a while under the house until the sun got to him even under thereand we began to feel the stink coming up from under the rug my mother mighthave beaten into cleanness."

Clearly--by anyone's standards--this is abeautifully wrought sentence. But it's the phrase "beaten intocleanness" that hit me hardest and continues to hit me each time I readit. This assemblage of three words sums up the Mormon legacy as clearly as thewhole of Bloom's tome. The history of the Mormons is stained by violence undera veneer of cleanliness. Kubarycz nails it. "On the Mountain" is asgood a story as I have ever read. Even without knowledge of its backdrop, anyattentive reader will measure it as a great accomplishment in American Literature.

This stands true for all of Kubarycz's work. I'vehad the great pleasure of reading his unpublished collection, tentativelyentitled, TheInstruments I Used.It disconcerts me to no end that the publishers of Cormac McCarthy's workresponded to Kubarycz's pages by saying they are "too literary for thecurrent market." Regardless, Kubarycz is making his mark, and I have nodoubt that his pages will be praised by both the public and the likes of Bloombefore the final sun sets.

Read The Full Article:
http://emergingwriters.typepad.com/emerging_writers_network/2009/07/source-of-lit
-unsaid-brian-kubarycz.html

Digg this

The Results of My Poll (and Im going to sneak in
another challenge)

Thanks to everyone who voted on which South African book I should read! A Beautiful Place to Die and A Time of Angels tied for first at 7 votes each, while Bitter Fruit and The Madonna of Excelsior ran a close second at 6 votes each.So how to choose between the two first placers?! [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://astripedarmchair.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/the-results-of-my-poll-and-im-go
ing-to-sneak-in-another-challenge/

Digg this

A Beautiful books Shot

Patrick Shanks steps up to the plate with a beautiful ‘books’ shot.The flip-flop does it for me.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nigelbeale/yxOu/~3/ncIiKUtP3v0/