The Guardian's Blog, page 126

Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading this week?

Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them

Welcome to this week's blog. Here's a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.

FrDuffyFighting69th said:

I am reading 'My Imitation of Christ' by Thomas A Kempis - ca 1420. It was written to provide a handbook on Christian devotion for his fellow religious brothers. However, as the foremost example of instruction on Devotio Moderna, I find it sublimely beautiful and extremely salient for modern day Christians seeking a deeper understanding of their Faith. It is one of those works that transcends the ages, and indicates that the author had spent many hours in prayer and meditation. I highly recommend it, that is if there are still any contemplative Christians out there who read the Guardian.

My long anticipated copy of Midnight, Dhaka a collection of poems by Mir Mahfuz Ali - has finally arrived. I had every intention of savouring this book slowly, dipping into it and letting the rich loam of his imagery soak into my mind in measured portions, but I couldn't do it. It's wonderful, every bit as good as I imagined it would be. I can't even describe how talented this man is. Insert half a dozen superlatives here...

Superb thriller set in London in 1927 about a former solider, Fred Rowlands - who has lost his sight during WWI - becoming involved in the cover-up of a murder. During his work as a switchboard operator, he overhears that his boss, (and former commanding officer), is having an affair with the wife of a wealthy and powerful socialite. This leads to murder and a game of cat & mouse, which Fred is an unwitting participant in... A really gripping murder mystery. Very filmic. Made me think of Hitchcock and 'The Lives of Others.'

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By JamesCV84

27 May 2014, 15:21

I've been reading Out For Blood by Margot Adler; it's a Kindle Single asking why vampires are so popular in contemporary pop culture, especially literature, and for someone who's never read a vampire book it's fascinating! Every chapter offers a different theory (Power, Sexuality, Spirituality) while linking it to Adler's own views on paganism and environmental activism. It's a really thoughtful piece and as a result Anne Rice has raced up my to-read list.

I bought this in 1987 and I've read at least 15 times since then. It's a fantastic fantasy quest through Ireland, funny and scary. It never gets tired.

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By hoodedpigwoman

27 May 2014, 20:35

I'm a bit obsessed with Steinbeck. Though a big fan of Dickens, Miller, Shakespeare, Conrad, Hemingway amongst others, I connect to his voice more than any other. This is a collection of his early stories and you can see his style and subjects forming into what would later become his masterpieces. No one author seems to appreciate, celebrate and understand our soul, nature and connection to the living world like him. Social justice, truth and human promise - feels like the world would be a lot smarter and more peaceful if everyone appreciated his observations - and Gove could do with working a few shifts on a farm crew before making anymore decisions!

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By James Stokes

28 May 2014, 9:50

I have to confess I'm a little scared of her. There are so many collections in my library that I don't know where to start and I'm also put off by her reputation. Worried that I'm not going to get her.

The great thing about Alice Munro's writing is that I don't think there is anything to get in the deep sense of the word. Her writing is very accessible and free of pretentiousness. Most of her stories are about very everyday people leading unremarkable lives yet she makes them interesting.

I agree with Isabelle Ileinster. No need to fear Alice Munro's stories. Eloquent, wise and succinct, she observes, with deceptive simplicity, human nature with all its quirks and foibles. For me she has the defining ability to express so much in so few words. I don't think you would regret reading any of her collections, I have enjoyed them all, and was particularly cheered that, at turned 80, her magic is still evident in Dear Life.

A TBR list is a bit like a financial debt. It weighs on you. And then it gets out of control and you find yourself in a spiral. And this place? Its like the pub or the bookmakers on the road between the ATM and the supermarket. Im almost flinching away from this weeks postings: Alice Munro, did several people say? Something about midnight in the capital of Bangladesh? Something about Gujarat, and some stories from the place they now call Mumbai? Get away from me! Be gone you foul temptresses! I have a stack of unread books climbing towards the ceiling already, and work to do!

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Is Jeremy Paxman right about new poetry's inaccessibility?

'Poets now seem to be talking to other poets... [not] people as a whole,' said the outgoing Newsnight presenter and Forward prize judge. Really? Help us compile examples of poems in film, TV, radio or any other pop-culture media and share your personal experiences of poetry in daily life

Judging the Forward prize for poetry must have been a perplexing experience for Jeremy Paxman: he has suggested the need for an "inquisition" in which "poets [would be] called to account for their poetry", and explain to their audience why they chose their subject and form. Paxman found "a whole pile of really good poems", but he wished that contemporary poetry "would raise its game a little bit, raise its sights", and "aim to engage with ordinary people much more".

Classic poetry has a definite place in popular culture, living on in readings, weddings and funerals. But as Jeremy Noel-Tod, editor of the Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry, pointed out: "Frank O'Hara was once patronised as a niche poet of the New York art scene. Fifty years later, he's being recited by Don Draper on Mad Men and is one of the most influential voices around." The outsider can move into the mainstream: here's Don reading from Meditations in an Emergency, on season 2 of the popular American TV series.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;

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12 literary insults to make you weep

A survey has named "My dear, I don't give a damn", from Gone With the Wind as the greatest literary putdown. Here are our choices. What are yours?

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Erotica authors live their dreams, survey finds

On rivers and adventure rides, in museums, offices and cemeteries, the authors of adult fiction are really throwing themselves into their 'research', it seems

My inbox heaves with surveys these days recent efforts include Heathcliff and Miss Havisham being voted literature's most haunting characters in a poll commissioned by a TV channel, the news that "dancing is the third most popular career choice for young boys, just behind doctor and footballer", and 40% of children apparently not knowing that Harry Potter was originally a character from a book.

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Poems of the week: Selima Hill

Four short and sharp looks at the social pressures weighing on young women are both witty and unsettling

Selima Hill's new collection The Sparkling Jewel of Naturism has an intriguing, faintly sexual title, disarmed, or complicated, by the jacket picture a handsome, striped Devon Rex cat with a pure, reproachful-seeming gaze. Unexpected visual juxtapositions occur throughout Hill's work, leading some commentators to associate it with surrealism. But the dislocations have a humane purpose: Hill may be anarchic but she is an anarchic reformer. Her small, glass-sharp poems mirror the reductive or disfiguring roles societies force individuals and animals to play.

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Quiz: Can you identify these classic sci-fi books by their covers?

You proved up to the challenge of guessing classic book covers. But how well do you know your way around the bookshops' alternate worlds? How many of these classic novels can you identify from their jackets? Continue reading...

Science fiction's real-life war of the worlds

For many years, a very particular and very narrow set of authors has dominated SF. But battle for a broader fictional universe is under way

When is a giant lizard not a giant lizard? When it's a metaphor for the might of the military-industrial complex. Audiences turning up for the latest cinematic incarnation of Godzilla have expressed some disappointment that much of the battling kaiju action was kept off screen. In its place director Gareth Edwards makes the smart decision to tinker with the kaleidoscopic political meanings that surround the giant lizard.

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GCSE English literature row: Don't blame Gove, blame me

I was part of the board of experts who recommended that government broaden what has been a very narrow English literature syllabus
News: Maya Angelou and John Steinbeck dropped from GCSE syllabuses

No doubt to the dismay of the Twittersphere, I have to report that the idea that our teenagers should be asked to read a few older works of English literature before the statutory school-leaving age was mine, not Michael Gove's. When the GCSE reforms were being considered, the Department for Education called in an advisory group of teachers, examiners and other stakeholders. I was there in my twin capacity as a university teacher and an active player in the educational work of the Royal Shakespeare Company.I have teenagers of my own, I visit schools and I meet prospective university students from very diverse backgrounds. In recent years, I have been increasingly alarmed at how many of them have not read a single work of English literature written before 1900, apart from Shakespeare. I've also found it depressing how often teenagers have said to me that their main GCSE set text was John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, which they found tedious, undeveloped, overly schematic and all too easy to reduce to a set of themes instead of a literary experience. In short, an insufficiently demanding book.

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Self-publishing is not revolutionary - it's reactionary

Trumpeted as a democratic broadening of the publishing field, 'authorpreneurialism' actually narrows the world of reading and writing

Self-publishing has always been possible and, indeed, for centuries was part and parcel of literary culture. Then it became expensive and, frankly, less prestigious, until digital books came along and made it affordable. Now price and success, too often the determinants of value, have made it respectable.

The idea of writers being able to bring their creations directly to readers is widely touted as a radical advance in authorial control and a revolution in the creative process. Its popularity has soared and its champions, such as the writer and founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors, Orna Ross, proclaim it as something "radical, really revolutionary within my world".. Self-publishing is the revolution du jour, the change that will liberate writers and democratise publishing.

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The best books on North Korea

From first hand accounts of gulag survivors to memoirs of defectors once part of the top echelons of government, heres our pick of the best books on the secretive kingdom

You can learn a lot about a country from literature and, when it comes to North Korea, the appetite for information is huge. From first hand accounts of prison camps survivors to defectors once part of the top echelons of government, heres our pick of the best books to get you started.

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