Win a copy of Memoirs of a Dervish As we related at the end of our exclusive interview with Robert Irwin on Monday, courtesy of Profile Books, we have ten copies of his Memoirs of a Dervish to give away to members of the Dabbler Book Club. The Spectator reckoned, ...this is a ... Read More...
Biography
Mr Slang recalls his work searching for citations in the notorious work of Victorian erotica My Secret Life. WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE AND EXTREME NAUGHTINESS... The index, as explained to Dabblers by Julia Keay, is a thing of beauty, one that may possibly transcend, for all the labours ... Read More...
Nige finds two extraordinary collectors within the pages of that lepidopterist's Bible, The Aurelian Legacy: British Butterflies and Their Collectors ... Like Gaul, The Aurelian Legacy is divided into three parts - a history of the British butterfly fancy, a biographical dictionary of notable butterfly men and women, and essays on some of ... Read More...
This month's Dabbler Book Club selection was Rupert Thomson's This Party's Got To Stop. Tomorrow we have an exclusive Q&A with the author, but today Dabbler editors Gaw and Brit provide their reviews... Gaw One of the good things about book clubs is that you read and end up enjoying books you ... Read More...
There are plenty of English language films about the Holocaust, but very few about the Soviet Gulag. It might be the obvious angle, but it’s difficult to consider Peter Weir’s new film, The Way Back, in any other light. The wastes of Siberia now have their very own Hollywood blockbuster. The ... Read More...
Yes, it's a highly entertaining trove of show-business anecdotes. Yes, it's a great tale of a boy made good (and bad), the son of America's first racially-integrated dentist - lauded in Harlem but nowhere else - who achieved Hollywood fame with all its trappings. Yes, it's the inside (and disputed) story of ... Read More...
By now you will be feeling a vague unease in the back of your brainbox about the Christmas gifts you haven’t yet bought for family, friends and foes. If you fail to address this problem, that unease will turn into disquiet, then a Weltschmerz, then an angst and finally a ... Read More...
Mahlerman is supplementing my belated musical education, dispensed via his remarkable Lazy Sunday Afternoon posts, by slipping in the odd piece on cinema. Last Sunday he included the opening scenes from the 1999 French film, Beau Travail. There's plenty here to pique one's interest - the theme of male jealousy, the ... Read More...
The release of Aung San Suu Kyi provides a happy opportunity to plug one of the best autobiographies I've read, The Land of Green Ghosts by Pascal Khoo Thwe, available for a mere penny here. It's written in a vivid and fresh style and is full of arresting images and ... Read More...
This Autumn marks the tenth anniversary of the death of RS Thomas. His obituaries portray an enigmatic personality replete with contradictions: a misanthropic Christian, a champion of Welsh who wrote poetry in English, a nationalist who didn't think much of his fellow Welshmen, an undemonstrative man who could write impassioned ... Read More...
