It is an extraordinary story. When he died in 1910, Mark Twain left behind some 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs, together with instructions saying that he did not want them to be published until at least 100 years after his death, perhaps fearing that their shock value would damage his ... Read More...
Biography
In about 1996, I got a deal to write a book about unlicensed boxing. I was arrogant enough to think I could actually write a book. I wish I had the excuse of being young, but I wasn’t really. I was just younger, which is no excuse at all. What ... Read More...
In this debut guest post from Slightly Foxed, Liz Robinson introduces Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, and examines some of the problems associated with the terminal condition of 'Being in Thrall to Books'. Titled 'Kindred Spirits', this was the very first article in the very first issue ... Read More...
"I won’t say that Slightly Foxed is essential, it’s just that I can’t live without it any more." Bernard Cornwell Discerning readers who enjoy our 1p Book Reviews are in for a treat, as we are delighted to announce that The Dabbler is joining forces with Slightly Foxed. Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader’s ... Read More...
This year marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of Adrian Carton de Wiart, one of the most remarkable - if fairly disturbing - soldiers this country has produced. His soldiering career extended from Boer to Second World Wars, taking in many events of large historical importance. He was usually to be ... Read More...
Rosie Bell was born in New Zealand and after doing her degree moved to Edinburgh. She writes songs and poems, as well as blog posts for her eponymous blog. She contributes to Harry's Place and Shiraz Socialist. We're delighted to welcome her to The Dabbler. Today she has not one but two books ... Read More...
This pithy prose-poem of a 1p Book Review has been sent in by discerning Dabbler reader Stephen Buckley... I’ve just bought Colm Toibin’s Bad Blood for a penny. History has cracked along since he wrote it yet has also continued its sluggish brown drag reminiscent of the peat streams Toibin observes flowing into the ... Read More...
I'm greatly enjoying Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchen's memoirs. They're worth reading solely for the sparkling tonic of his prose style, a distinctive aesthetic pleasure in itself. But, as one would expect, they also happen to be full of captivating ideas and observations as well as the usual expansive and apposite range ... Read More...
A Dubious Codicil, from which that quote about the “stupefying work of painstaking bad taste and technical skill” is taken, is the second part of Michael ‘Peter Simple’ Wharton’s autobiography. You can buy it (not, alas, for a penny) along with the first, The Missing Will, in a single volume, ... Read More...
In his second volume of autobiography, A Dubious Codicil, Michael Wharton describes the Shaftesbury Avenue studio of cartoonist Michael ffolkes, as “a strange room of narrow triangular shape crammed with an astounding assortment of treasures” and draws particular attention to:...A huge photograph of a painting by the nineteenth-century French Salon ... Read More...
