Zina Rohan's Blog, page 7
July 17, 2011
When Something Pushes Reading Out
...Rupert Murdoch...News Corp...police corruption...money changing hands...politicians implicated. It hasn't been so much fun since Watergate. Great characters. The plot's a bit too busy, but hey - you didn't even have to make it up.
July 12, 2011
McMafia
Well, I've finished it - and I really do recommend it. Essentially, as he trogs around the world - and I mean all around the world - Glenny concludes that organised crime thrives on the way that globalisation has been managed, or rather, not managed. By opening up and de-regulating the world's financial markets and insisting on the free movement of goods, but not people, organised crime is almost inevitable. It's bred by poverty in search of great riches. And we are all complicit. Every item, more or less, that we buy these days is tainted. A very readable but deeply depressing book.
July 3, 2011
This is Compelling
I'm reading McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Underworld on my kindle. Waiting to be read there is Amitav Ghosh's River of Smoke, the follow-up toe Sea of Poppies. But I will only allow myself to turn to that once my first draft is done. Meanwhile, whoever is interested in organised crime, do read McMafia. Misha Glenny (special interest: he was a colleague and friend when I was at the BBC) has truly been round the world for this one. He tells his story well, of course, as a good journo should, but his analysis is particularly interesting. And he got people to talk to him. Go for it. Come the time, if I remember, it will get many stars - for what that's worth.
June 22, 2011
Permitted Reading
I'm reading - and being fascinated by McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Underworld. It's not fiction, so that's all right; it's even more surprising than I expected - and I expected quite a lot; and I have known the authors (in my journalist guise) for a number of years. He knows his stuff. I recommend.
Meanwhile, a small request: might I ask those of you who follow these posts if you would readThe Small Book.l It is not remotely as long as The Officer's Daughter, but it IS an English story. I would really like to know if it speaks to non-Brits at all. It won't take you long, promise.
Meanwhile, a small request: might I ask those of you who follow these posts if you would readThe Small Book.l It is not remotely as long as The Officer's Daughter, but it IS an English story. I would really like to know if it speaks to non-Brits at all. It won't take you long, promise.
June 20, 2011
Not Book Relevant
I went to a talk yesterday given by Mark Singleton who is both a yoga teacher and an academic. He has done research which shows pretty conclusively that physical yoga - all those asanas (postures) have their origins as much in the body-building and gymnastics of the west as in India, and anyway only date back to the late 18th/early 19th century, and many of them later. Convincing. Also hilarious.
June 12, 2011
Oops! Another Lapse
I seem to have read another book, all the while pretending I don't read fiction while I'm writing....I promise to do better, I promise to do better.
This one was The Shadow Lines, a story of variable truths, of memory, of lives lived and imagined. I like Amitav Ghosh a lot, though this one I have to say less than either The Glass Palace or Sea of Poppies. I will soon read part two of the trilogy on the Opium Wars...but perhaps should keep quiet about that.
This one was The Shadow Lines, a story of variable truths, of memory, of lives lived and imagined. I like Amitav Ghosh a lot, though this one I have to say less than either The Glass Palace or Sea of Poppies. I will soon read part two of the trilogy on the Opium Wars...but perhaps should keep quiet about that.
June 2, 2011
That's That, then
Enjoyed the Montalbano and the final Wallander. Now no more excuses, no more displacement activity. Back to my story. On the other hand...
May 30, 2011
Reader, I apologise/apologize
Did I say it has to be non-fiction? I've just read (in a sitting) the latest Inspector Montalbano and am about to read (in two sittings, I imagine) the latest Wallander. It's a bank holiday so I'm not at work and could be at my desk writing. But, lo, I'm not. Others might clean the kitchen by way of procrastination but I'm lazier than that.
May 14, 2011
Where will it go?
I am 16,000 words into a new novel. For the first time in my life I am writing one that requires no research. This is a new experience. I know where it should go, but not how it should get there.
May 9, 2011
It Has to be Non-fiction
This is really annoying. Usually, when I am writing I try to avoid reading fiction out of a fear, perhaps, of being somehow influenced by what I've just read. So I read the NYR and non-fiction books. But at the moment I really would like to read a novel, but no matter what I try turns to dust. This is odd. And I know it's not that the books I've tried are no good - they are by authors I admire. Damn!
