Nigel Jones
The Hungover Life of Patrick Hamilton
THE CENTENARIES OF two notable British writers, Graham Greene and Patrick Hamilton, fall this year. Everyone has heard of Greene, and you might expect he would be the one to make a fuss about. Yet apparently not. Liam Browne, literature organiser of the Brighton Festival, wanted to celebrate both novelists and their connections with the city. ‘Much to my surprise, there was very little interest in Greene, whereas everyone wanted to talk about Hamilton’, says Browne. So a posse of distinguished literary fans, including Doris Lessing, Michael Holroyd, Lynne Truss, D J Taylor and Sean French, will be beside the seaside in May to discuss Hamilton’s work, while Greene is left out in the cold.
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
'Reading Taylor’s book has also made me join a book club. I did not like the January book; I did enjoy drinking gin while saying why.'
@clamorousvoice explores the history of women readers.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-readers
'When the language starts functioning as a character in fiction, when it is there drawing attention to itself ... It’s not anything that anybody really takes seriously.'
Our interview with Anthony Burgess from 1983.
http://ow.ly/5u0y50yrjoO
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe