The other day Hilary Mantel’s book, Bring Up the Bodies, won the Costa Book Award. In the Guardian Books section, her win prompted many congratulatory comments together with a smattering from those who either didn’t like the book or were dismissive because …
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Musings
Books and Reading
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St George and his dragons: Orwell’s crusade
A month or so ago, I posted a review of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eight-Four in the Guardian readers’ review section. The reason for writing it had as much to do with myself as with thinking that it was particularly important to offer a fresh …
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The sense and sensibility of book lovers
There are few creatures who deserve to be viewed with as much suspicion as the self-professed book lover. Those whose sensibilities are so universal, or fickle, that they include both the …
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Books of their time
Lists are fun. People like them, especially when they disagree with them. There’s a delightful feeling of smugness reading a list and discovering that the whoever compiled the list didn’t have sense enough to include an entry that you know …
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Failing readers – The Hunger Games and dystopian literature
Quite recently I had an interesting but brief exchange on Twitter with someone called alittlebriton, who seemed to be a bit surprised that I wasn’t all that taken with The Hunger Games. Actually, alittlebriton seemed even more surprised that I …
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Bully books and story sirens
I was prompted to write this because of several discussions that followed an article I posted a couple of weeks ago, Dazzled in Istanbul. Some books are bullies, punching and poking us mercilessly, taunting us to defend ourselves or fight …
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