John Sutherland
In A Bind
Phantoms on the Bookshelves
By Jacques Bonnet (Translated by Siân Reynolds with an introduction by James Salter)
MacLehose Press 133pp £12
Proust’s Overcoat
By Lorenza Foschini (Translated by Eric Karpeles)
Portobello Books 128pp £9.99
Something momentous is coming. Bigger than Alexandria, bigger than Savonarola’s bonfires, bigger than the awful incinerations of books at Dresden in 1945 and at Paternoster Row in 1941. In his introduction to Phantoms on the Bookshelves James Salter warns that:
A tide is coming in and the kingdom of books, with their white pages and endpapers, their promise of solitude and discovery, is in danger, after an existence of five hundred years, of being washed away.
Utopia or apocalypse? Ronald Reagan liked to say that when the tide comes in, all the boats go up: a good thing. Tsunamis, on the other hand, are a very bad thing. Which is the Google Library Project? Its fifteen million volumes will be in the palms of
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm