I’ve got a lot on at the moment and am about to go on holiday, and so I don’t know what reviews are going to get done or not. Regardless of what gets done though, I must remark on three excellent new albums, CSI: Ambleside by Half Man Half Biscuit, Imperial Wax Solvent by The Fall, and “couples” […]

Jon Savage, writer of the latest film about Joy Division, writes a very interesting article in today’s Guardian about the literary influences on the young Ian Curtis. Sad to say,  the Manchester book shops he mentions are no more. There’s still a smattering of off-kilter bookshops around Shude Hill now, but porn takes precedence. Ian would have […]

I am not, it must be said, a  fan of the music of Art Garfunkel. I am however taken aback in my admiration of the size of the man’s library. It seems that, as a “voracious reader since the 1960s”, Art has now reached book number 1023 and counting, and has listed every one for […]

Benjamin Kunkel on Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle in today’s Guardian.
“Reading it, you want to reject Vonnegut’s pessimism as too easy and comprehensive, like the sour negativity of adolescents - always Vonnegut’s best and most devoted readers - but it’s not evident that the 21st century will grant us very strong grounds on which to do […]

Here’s an oddity and a half. Back in 1988, when Howard Devoto was promoting his new band Luxuria, the newly solo Morrissey turned up unannounced at the beginning off the gig, and started reciting  Marcel Proust. As Harry Hill used to say, what are the chaaances…..? (via Morrissey Solo)

I’ve had this bloody thing on order from Amazon for over fifteen months now, and with the publishing date forever slipping further into the distance. But now it seems M.E.S’s memoir Renegade is finally about to emerge. Judging from this extract it seems great fun.
Still no sign of this though. Boo.

Ian Rankin was a naughty boy at last week’s British Book Awards. Apparently the booze-addled Scottish crime writer got all starry-eyed for a 26-year old groupie, who he took back to his room at the Grovesnor House hotel.
“I got very drunk and did some stupid things which I now regret. I have let my whole […]

 Some slight nuggets of great interest in this week’s Guardian Review 
-Alberto Manguel on Jack London’s great unfinished novel the Assassination Bureau. I’d not heard of it before and it sounds fascinating. The concept of the novel itself is intriguing (a bit like a more well thought version of the morally righteous revenge fantasies as explored […]

Just been sent a copy of Jeff Talarigo’s The Ginseng Hunter. Set on the Chinese border with North Korea, Talarigo spent time camping on the border to experience it for himself and interviewing North Korean refugees. I very much like the idea of novelists getting involved in history that’s happening right now and drawing out […]

Fascinating - and scary - piece in the International Herald Tribune about Trevor Paglen’s book I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have To Be Destroyed By Me: Emblems from the Pentagon’s Black World
Skulls. Black cats. A naked woman riding a killer whale. Grim reapers. Snakes. Swords. Occult symbols. A wizard with a staff […]