Auberon Waugh
Woe be Unto Thee, O Moab!
My December sermon from the pulpit, as a few people may remember, ended with a paean of praise and thanks to Stephen Fry, who kindly agreed to present the prizes at the Literary Review’s annual award for Bad Sex in Fiction – won this year by Nicholas Royle, whose original and stimulating novel The Matter of the Heart (Abacus £9.99) included the glorious sentence: ‘Yasmin grinned and writhed on the bed, arching her back, making a noise somewhere between a beached seal and a police siren.’
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Though 'the hotel had a reputation as the area’s best, its staff were not used to looking after world leaders, so the arrival of Cuba’s new strongman, Fidel Castro, came as something of a shock.'
@dcsandbrook on @simonhallwriter's 'Ten Days in Harlem'.
http://ow.ly/I63850Bvs10
'After all, who knows what anybody is really like, or what they really think? The biographer – same as a painter of portraits – cannot help but reproduce himself to some degree.'
From the archive: Beryl Bainbridge talks to Sebastian Shakespeare.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/sebastian-shakespeare-talks-to-beryl-bainbridge
"fascinating piece of writing ...unexpectedly gripping read...The #RedCircleMinis are a really wonderful initiative; every one I’ve read has been so different and so good... #OneLoveChigusa is an excellent addition to the series! “Thank you @kaggsy59 🙂 https://bit.ly/2ZIdeqL