Nick Hornby
Bring on the Beef
Punters who were persuaded to buy Damage, Josephine Hart’s first, best-selling novel, because its striking black-and-white cover made it look like a box of chocolates were unlikely to have been disappointed. It was impossible not to devour the book in a single evening and, after you had finished it, you were left with a strong desire to put your finger down your throat: reading about all those ordinary people doing unspeakable things to each other while in the grip of uncontrollable obsession left you feeling both nauseated and guilty.
Sin (and the title lends itself nicely to another choccy-box campaign) is more of the same. This time the narrator is a woman, and this time the insatiable and consuming desire has a psychological explanation: Ruth’s passion for stuffy
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'The trouble seems to be that we are not asked to read this author, reading being a thing of the past. We are asked to decode him.'
From the archive, Derek Mahon peruses the early short fiction of Thomas Pynchon.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/rock-n-roll-is-here-to-stay
'There are at least two dozen members of the House of Commons today whose names I cannot read without laughing because I know what poseurs and place-seekers they are.'
From the archive, Christopher Hitchens on the Oxford Union.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/mother-of-unions
Chuffed to be on the Curiosity Pill 2020 round-up for my @Lit_Review piece on swimming, which I cannot wait to get back to after 10+ months away https://literaryreview.co.uk/different-strokes https://twitter.com/RNGCrit/status/1351922254687383553