I hear today is something called Blue Monday; before today, I was familiar with this phrase only as the title of a lesser example of the music of a great dancey 80s band. Apparently, we should all be sad and restless today, wondering how “ennui” is spelled and where we can use it in polite…
Tag: China Mieville
Like one of Shakespeare’s fairies: The Year of Reading Proust has begun
My dear friend, Catastrophizer, and I met during our PhDs. She is a dyed in the wool Modernist while I think the last time anyone wrote good poetry was prior to the year 1700. She hates Henry James, without exception, and does a bitterly funny send-up of The Wings of the Dove. It goes something…
IFOA round-up and other bookish thoughts
I recently had the pleasure of watching China Mieville flex his over-large mental muscles at the International Festival of Authors. He informed me (not just me–I was in a room with a couple hundred others) that when bloggers apologize for not posting more frequently, he couldn’t give a shit–so I won’t apologize now. I’m not…
Preparing for the International Festival of Authors like a good little book nerd
Every year, Toronto hosts the massive, and massively popular, International Festival of Authors. It’s a gathering of contemporary writers spanning over a week and is as full of breathless gushing and long line-ups as you can imagine. I’ve been a few times, having had the pleasure of seeing how well David Mitchell and William Gibson…
Teenaged white boy saves the world! Yes, again.
Everyone loves Cory Doctorow’s YA novel of teenage rebellion, Little Brother. And it makes sense that they do because the book is topical: it’s about surveillance, and technology, and what internet freedom means in post-911 America. It’s full of characters who are simultaneously cool and nerdy, so it has broad social appeal. It features minorities…
Jam and Idleness 