“Good writing can only be learned from good writing.” This book is a collection of lectures that Forster gave at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1927. It grabs you immediately as he dismisses temporality and time periods in the discussion of the merits of novels and, instead, places all writers in the same room writing from some sort of shared humanity. “We may say that History develops, Art stands still” From that he sets out to deconstruct the novel, discussing it not as a set or […]
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. Winston Smith does not know what year it is when he sits down to write his diary. He thinks it’s 1984, but he can’t be sure. The past has been edited and rewritten so many times that the current date and year of Oceania can be hard to trace. In fact it’s Winston’s job to help rewrite the past, by updating newspapers and media everytime the Party demands it. “Who controls the past controls the future. […]
Don’t be a dictator
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Animal farm is one of those classics that are pretty much absorbed and ingrained in society. It tells the story of some animals on a farm becoming deeply enraged about the unfairness as they do all the work and the farmer reaps the reward. They stage a revolution and rename the farm “Animal farm.” They adopt the Seven Commandments of Animalism, the most important of which is, “All animals are equal.” And for […]
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine is… fine.
Eleanor Oliphant lives alone, and she is completely fine thank you very much. She works during the week, but Friday she buys two bottles of vodka and spends her entire weekend drunk. This all changes when the new IT-guy Raymond walks her home one day and an old man collapses on the ground. Eleanor is forced out of her shell and thrust into a new family, but there are shadows from the past lurking and Mummy still calls every Wednesday… “If someone asks you how […]
A warm and lovely book that took me by surprise
Anna is living with her family in Ireland, recouperating after an accident. Everybody is taking great care of her, but she can’t shake the feeling that people are tip-toeing around her. And she can’t seem to reach Aidan, who is still in New York. As soon as she’s healed she decides she must go back to her old apartment, her job as a PR for a beauty brand, her old life. Anybody out there is written in a light, breezy language with a likable […]
Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong
I love musicals and I like Opera. I love Phantom of the Opera and I love great female characters with ambition. Of course Terry Pratchett’s going to combine all this into one perfect little book. Granny and Nanny are witches in a coven who’ve recently lost their third witch. Unfortunately they discover that you really need the third witch to balance stuff out, so they come up with a plan to recruit Agnes Nitt to be part of their little gang. You needed at least […]
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