Following Jon Hotten's review of Hood Rat - Gavin Knight's new survey of Britain's gang culture - Elberry takes on the underclass... One of the great pleasures of living in Germany is not living in England. In Germany disaffected youths scrawl pointless graffiti and dress in bright primary colours; in England, they take ... Read More...
About Author Profile: Elberry
Elberry reviews Philip Connors' much-hyped chronicle of a season spotting wildfires in New Mexico... I came to this book via the usual marketing soundbites: masterwork, unforgettable, profoundly absorbing, absolutely compelling, and so on. Not many books can live up to such praise, and Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout ... Read More...
Elberry reviews a new book about how "one of the greatest and most extensive tyrannies in human history was initiated by a very small number of idealist oddbods..." The title is somewhat deceptive: Spies and Commissars (Macmillan, 4 Nov 2011) isn't a non-fiction thriller but rather an account of the West's ... Read More...
At The Dabbler we're going to be reviewing more of the best new books, both recent publications and imminent ones. Here Elberry takes on The Sisters Brothers - one of the shortlisted books for the 2011 Man Booker prize - and explains why its protagonists would "brutally and justly pistol-whip Ian McEwan"... If ... Read More...
Elberry considers what JRR Tolkien's masterpiece can teach us about an all-too human emotion. Tolkien’s vision of evil is subtle and extensive. He is not content with black riders and Balrogs and orcs, these dramatic but thoroughly inhuman enemies; there is also the all-too familiar and all-too human emotion of hatred, ... Read More...
About time we had some Elberry on this blog, isn't it? From the September 2010 archives, here he is dissecting a scene from Goodfellas... The last flawlessly great film of Robert de Niro's career. Jimmy Conway, the tough Irish hood, the murderer and hijacker and all round nice guy. Everyone likes Jimmy. ... Read More...
The last flawlessly great film of Robert de Niro's career. Jimmy Conway, the tough Irish hood, the murderer and hijacker and all round nice guy. Everyone likes Jimmy. Everyone wants to be around Jimmy. He gives the doorman a hundred just for opening the door. "He was locked up at eleven ... Read More...
A guest post by Elberry, an English teacher based in Germany, and the first of an occasional series of Close Readings. Patrick Kurp quotes from Henry James´ great The Beast in the Jungle: Marcher knew him at once for one of the deeply stricken--a perception so sharp that nothing else in the ... Read More...
