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Inspired by @Benny Bunter asking about Ackroyd’s Eliot and also reading that Ellman’s biography of Joyce is to be the subject of its own book, I was interested by: what are the good biographies of writers out there; what makes a good one and, by comparison what makes a bad one...

Just been reading about the recent spike in audiobook usage in the last few years. I'm guessing it's kind of connected to how easy it is to listen to books while on the move, in the gym, in the car etc. I must admit that since lockdown i have become a convert and regularly listen to stuff while...

Maybe I am showing my age here but been listening to Dolby after hearing him for the first time in ages on the Soulwax mix Blue http://www.kevinenjoyce.com/soulwax/forum/viewtopic.php?id=717 - they slide Airwaves into Robert Wyatt's SeaSong and it made me go dig out The Flat Earth and The...

Don't know whether this belongs in music or books... Been reading Bad Vibes by Haines. A genuinely funny account of the mass hypnosis that was Britpop. Haines comes out of the whole affair as a principled bastard who seems to sabotage his career at every turn. He nails all the usual suspects...

Probably not many on here were fans of his but it's mighty depressing to hear of yet another early death coming so soon after Vic Chesnutt.

Dunno if we have a thread for this or not as search function seems buggered... Anyway, a pleasing thing from Hamish Hamilton. This issue has DFW as its focus. http://fivedials.com/fivedials

Inspired by the fact that I have actually managed to finish a few books that have been lying around for months and I still have one from the summer and by the story of my mate who finally finished Tom Jones having started it ten years ago, I got to thinking about how long certain books can take...

Dunno if anyone much interested over here but I always thought what a really gifted guitarist and song writer the man was - some of that stuff in the 70s/80s still sounds really fresh. Bit of an old bugger by all accounts and still pretty fearsome when he had his legs amputated. time for a bit...

I have just been reading Wildwood by Roger Deakin and have recently finished Nature Cure by Richard Mayby and have Crow Country by Mark Cocker on my to be read pile. I was wondering a number of things - are we seeing a flowering of decent writing on nature/ the natural world? These are all book...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7456031.stm Only fucking 44!

Don't know if there will be any takers for this but here we go, nonetheless. I have just finished James Woods' latest book 'How Fiction Works' in which he places Flaubert as the founder of modernism with the invention of free indirect style. I just wondered what the readers on this board think...

I thought this might be of interest to some of you. NEWS Series: Tony Conrad Tate Modern 13 - 15 June 2008 Tate Modern celebrates the work of avant-garde video artist and experimental filmmaker, Tony Conrad. At this special weekend, see Conrad transform the Turbine Hall with a major new...

So, i've got both books and have read the first few pages of each. I'm hoping this is going to be an inspired choice. I'm already looking forward to really ploughing on with We in particular. Do we know who is onboard for this one?

So today I am at home instead of work - The NUT has called its first national strike in 21 years. It has got me thinking - is the strike an outmoded form of protest? Or is it just a that we have been sucked into seeing unions and their actions as outmoded - a throwback to a less'enlightened'...

I have just finished a collection of short stories Call of Cthulhu by Lovecraft. I know he's considered to be a bit special by the Dissensus types round here (in the same way Balllard is) and I was wondering why - I mean I think the stories were ok - a bit over-wraught and decidedly purple in...

So, i'm twenty pages from teh end and I have enjoyed the read but I have yet to be sure what I feel about the book. It reminds me, in places, of Perec's W (double-vie in French). The way it starts so light, almost whimsical and then turns ever darker in this surealistic world it has created. I...

On my list is: The third volume of the Picasso Biography by John Richardson The Sinclair edited book London:City of Disappearences Pound's Cantos The Rouleur annual I'm sure there are more but it'll do to get the ball rolling btw i doubt my family will take most of the hints I've been...

I'm not a technological whizz and so am asking for a bit of help here. In the last week my inbox has been clogged up with 'undelivered messages' that have been bounced back to me from all over europe and yet i have not sent these messages in the first place. Anything i can do to end the 20-30...

Inspired by the great reviews for the new Tomalin biography i thought I'd give him another go. ( I also though i'd be fool hardy enough to try and discuss books here again) As a student I never managed to finish any of hi s famous novels and only really started to consider him worthy of any ind...

What do we make of Tom Waits? I've just got hold of Orphans and i'm starting to think that between him and Newsom and bloggariddims i'm not going to need to listen to anything else between now and christmas! I like the range of Waits - he can be incredibly sentimental and then suddenly come...