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Friday 24 August 2007

Weekend reading

Later today, we're off to North Wales for four days of walking, reading, drinking and sleeping. Lola the Puppy shall accompany us, of course.


I'm not sure what I'll be reading, but it won't be Herman Abert's absolutely massive Mozart biography which landed here yesterday. It looks stunning, mind, and I'm thrilled to have received a copy, but it is jaw-droppingly huge. Almost as big as Lola, and certainly heavier! I think its 1600 pages are going to have to wait for a much quieter time in my life than now.


I reckon that Philip Davis's new Bernard Malamud: A Writer's Life will come along with me, however, as it looks like a fine work. Malamud seems to have seriously missed out on the recognition and critical acclaim that Roth and Bellow achieved, yet he ranks along them both (surely better than the former, isn't he?)


My novel of choice is set to be Bruno Arpaia's The Angel of History, an "award-winning reimagining of Walter Benjamin's final days during World War II" which I don't remember noticing when it came out in trade paperback last year. Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde will probably be shoved in my case too.


Have a lovely weekend, y'all.

Posted by Mark Thwaite
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Reader Comments

Friday 24 August 2007

Stephen Mitchelmore says...

Good thing Mozart didn't live any longer!

That Malamud biography, by the way, is very good. "A Writer's Life" is a particularly appropriate subtitle in this case.

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Appointment

He fingers the ends with the care of a vet
handling a new-fledged baby bird.
'How would you like it cut?' he asks.
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I know I won't go. Just impediments
are for the movies. But I let him snip
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as thoughtfully as though I had the guts
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meretricious

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