THE WAR AGAINST BOREDOM: ‘Energy’ in the talked about first novel
In a Youtube video from May 2010, Ned Beauman, the Author of Boxer, Beetle, suggested that readers aren’t entirely honest with themselves: that our motivation for reading novels and the way we talk...
View Article‘It is not a critical biography. It is, rather, an uncritical biography.’...
Richard Bradford’s biography of Amis has inspired some brilliantly damning reviews. Leo Robson’s review for The New Statesman was particularly acclaimed, being nominated for the Hatchet Job of the Year...
View ArticleMIDDLE IMMATURITY: Adam Thirlwell, Kapow!
In ‘an exchange’ with The New Yorker, Adam Thirlwell discussed his choice to include a glossary of all the literary allusions he makes in the back of The Escape, his second novel. He said it played...
View ArticleBEN LERNER’S POETICAL NOVEL: Leaving the Atocha Station
Leaving the Atocha Station is a novel by a poet about poetry. Or rather, it is a novel about translation, pretense, inspiration, neurosis and inaction. Ben Lerner is a young, award winning American...
View ArticleTHE GOOD TRUANT: Interview with James Wood
James Wood is arguably the most celebrated, possibly the most impugned, and definitely the most envied, literary journalist living. By his mid twenties he was the chief book reviewer for The Guardian....
View ArticlePERSONA NON GRANTA
In a radio interview which coincided with the Granta announcement, twice-listed judge A. L. Kennedy mentioned that the business climate means publishers pick safe books, which makes for blandness. I...
View ArticleHOW SHOULD AN INTERVIEW BE? Conversation with Sheila Heti
There is a question which writers (and readers) of literary fiction get tired of hearing: which bits really happened? The traditional and respectable answer is that this doesn’t matter. Everything in...
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