This week Mr Slang writes in praise of Simenon's great detective: "a very French policeman, compounded of French characteristics and set among the most clichéd of French backgrounds"... I am reading Maigret. Tout Maigret, since it is (a) Maigret in his entirety, and (b) in French. I am not showing off, ... Read More...
Month: April 2012
Here's the first of two exclusive online extracts from the indispensable guide to the hidden joys of Scotland, Anne Ward's Nothing to See Here. It's published by the intrepid folks at Pocket Mountains and you can buy it here. Today, we marvel at an inspiring hand-crafted chapel. In the waters of Scapa ... Read More...
From the archives, here's Worm's review of a beautiful, unusual book... Typographer and book designer Judith Schalansky grew up behind the Iron Curtain in 1980's East Germany. Unable to travel beyond the borders of her own insular country, she spent her childhood poring over maps of unobtainably far off places, "travelling through ... Read More...
Rita despairs at a crazy new variant on one of the internet's most persistent conspiracy theories... Birth Announcement Born, in the United States of America in the eighth year of the 21st century, of the marriage of Ignorance and Racism: the Notion that the duly elected President is not American-born, and is ... Read More...
Whether it's through the drudgery of a yokel or some of the vastest engineering projects ever undertaken, we can't resist messing around with water. It's benefited our gardens, cities, crops and sport - but at what cost? I spend many summer hours watering the plants in my small back garden – ... Read More...
From the Dabbler archives, Rosie Bell's excellent tribute to John Gross. The post is also notable for concluding with some remarkable lit-crit twaddle from one Dr Dylan Trigg, subsequent star of a Noseybonk episode... I was sorry to hear of the death of John Gross. His Rise and Fall of the ... Read More...
To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens' birth, we're serialising The Pickwick Papers... Thanks to our friends at Naxos Audiobooks, we're exclusively serialising their abridged version of what is perhaps Dickens’ funniest work, The Pickwick Papers, read by Anton Lesser. The latest episodes can be heard below. You can catch up ... Read More...
In the second of our Easter Sunday posts we explore a flower-covered car wreck and a rain-sodden graveyard to consider what Easter has meant to two of our grumpiest poets. I keep returning to the two Thomases - Hardy and R.S. - even though they must be two of the most ... Read More...
In the first of two Easter Sunday posts exploring the festival as seen from diverse viewpoints, Mahlerman looks eastwards. With more than a millennium of Christianity behind them the Russian Easter (Pashka) is the single most important day in the Orthodox calendar. Last year I played with a straight bat at ... Read More...
Perhaps I should be more patriotic, but much as I love the V&A, the latest exhibition is a bit of a bulldog’s dinner. British Design 1948-2012: Innovation in the Modern Age has a fundamental problem with time span and size – there’s simply too much to fit in. Still, this ... Read More...
