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What do you think Carey, Peter Theft: A Love Story (Faber & Faber) Desai, Kiran The Inheritance of Loss (Hamish Hamilton) Edric, Robert Gathering the Water (Doubleday) Gordimer, Nadine Get a Life (Bloomsbury) Grenville, Kate The Secret River (Canongate) Hyland, M.J. Carry Me Down...

Well, this is supposed to be Art as well as Lit and Film but Art is never discussed. I tend to go check out the London based art stuff cos that is near where i live. This week i went to the Constable and Hodgkin at Tate Briain and then the drawing room at the British Museum (my favourite...

I have just recently finished reading Greenblatt's Will In The World and Shapiro's 1599, two very readable books on the social/historical contexts which created Shakespeare and it got me to thinking about how the dissensians view Shakespeare. After all the mood here is often anti-canonical and...

OK I'm starting this cos it has been raised a few times elsewhere on the Lit Forum. . Obviously St. J. G. Ballard of this parish is the sine qua non of this field but can i add a few detective writers- Ian Rankin and his Rebus series George P Pelecanos Kinky Friedman James Ellroy David Peace...

Most of the novels recommended on here are usually quite modern. So, it got me wondering what are the pre- twentieth century novels that people are reading? Or are they becoming museum pieces- things studied in the hallowed halls of university but no longer read for pleasure? I am currently...

Whilst recovering from a broken leg I'm listening to loads of music. This morning I listened to the two Shara Nelson solo albums and suddenly thought 'Where did she go?' I mean she has a fantastic voice and I just love those two albums - so what happened to her, where is she now an dhas she...

I know a number of you have posted about cycling but anyone on here interested in the ProTour? I must admit to becoming more interested once i bought myself a roadbike. The Giro is currently taking place and Basso has just gone into the lead - many people's favourite for the Tour de France...

I always had fond memories of this film when it was released in the cinema and i just got it on dvd and spent last night watching it. still find it absolutely spellbinding - surely the two leads are the most beautiful actors in recent times - that fantastic nat king cole (i think) song as...

Having just finished the last Jake Arnott i got to thinking about the pleasures involved in reading a linked series of novels. Over the years i have noticed it becoming quite a preoccupation. I think there are a number of reasons for this - when you find someone you like then having 'more of...

I stumbled across this amazing short animated film from 1955 on the BFI website (educational facilities have a licence to watch clips). Essentially it is all done with silhouettes and depicts 13 Cantos from Dante's Inferno. I was showing it to some sixth formers(we're studying Blake and wanted...

I thought about this last night. No-one here really discusses much in the way of jazz. I had just put on a Bill Evans' album and was wallowing in the sheer lambent beauty of his playing and started to think 'sometimes, just sometimes, the piano is the most perfect of all instruments' (of course...

Just got Remain in Light on CD as part of a huge reissue programme and i must say this is one of the few occasions when arissue actually adds to the original artifact. the first disc has bonus tracks - a couple of which if sorted could have easily sat on the original but it's the second disc...

So i thought maybe if i asked for something uncontentious - a name, a line of verse, a poem - i might get some joy. do we read poetry anymore? if we do, then whom do we read? ancient or modern, i don't mind - the faber gang; the prynne obsessives; famous seamus; logue reading hill sinclair or...

I ask this as it seems that almost no Lit thread seems to survive long and seems to engender very little debate. Since moving to the catch all 'art, lit, film' it seems to have got worse. film seems to have enough fans to make discussion viable but over and again lit threads wither and die -...

Have just finished the latest Julian Barnes and it got me to thinking just how deeply unfashionable he must be amongst the young turks of today. and then i thought, probably not just him but pretty much every body who was originally on the granta list from the eighties - rushdie, amis, mcewan...

Here we go in another example of hope over experience... Don't know if i have spotted a trend but in the past two weeks i have read three, very, different people have their knives out for W.H. - kpunk took a swipe at him in an unrelated post, paglia has just stated she could not find a single...

Spent most of this week deeply engrossed in the second disc of Kate Bush's new album - ariel. Not quite sure what the dissensus on this will be. the first disc is a patchy affair including a song where she recites pi to god knows how many decimal places and another in which she beautifully...

I have recently been teaching both The Winter’s Tale and Othello and have been thinking about the causes of jealousy. I usually tell my students that it goes something like this: Jealousy is borne out of insecurity – I have met someone so wonderful, they are so fantastic and clearly much better...

Just got back from a visit to Tate Britain, ostensibly to see the Sickert et al exhibition. That was all preety much first class - lautrec, degas, bonnard, whistler - genuinely thrilling stuff , finishing off with 'ennui' as the final picture reminded me of just how good sickert could be and how...

Prompted by comments on another thread with regard to the pixies and husker du i got to remincsing about the golden days of the melody maker - in particular 88 or thereabouts. reynolds, wilde, roberts, stubbs, the studs...(parkes and price later on) in particular i rememberthe studs with...