Currently reading: Cat’s Cradle

Just finished it actually. A dark, interesting little book. I liked it more than Slaughterhouse Five.

I am curious about Vonnegut’s view of religion having read it – some quick research (and much of his novels) suggests he was an…

currently reading: the slap

Along with the wonderful V, I am reading The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas.  So far, I am hard pressed to think of a novel I have enjoyed less.

The novel apparently examines “identities and personal…

currently reading: V

I am thoroughly enjoying V by Thomas Pynchon so far.

The novel is roughly divided between the listless drifting of post WWII New York City, the byzantine European intrigues of pre-WWI Florence and…

currently reading: on the road

Shamefully, I have never read this before.

Needless to say, it’s a fascinating insight into a strange American era.  The book is filled with tension between the sudden possibilities of life in the postwar United States – the trajectory hinted…

currently reading: the road

I have never read any Cormac McCarthy before.  This is grim, raw, intermittently violent, and relentlessly dark.  The style, which grated slightly at first due to its wilful simplicity (no ‘distracting’ punctuation and the like and very Hemingwayish) has…

currently reading: titus groan

Totally fascinating.  Written by Mervyn Peake who was himself quite fascinating: a brilliant writer and artist who died prematurely of Parkinson’s disease, with many ideas yet to be reduced to written form.  So far the book is…

currently reading: slaughterhouse five

So far so good.  I’ve read The Sirens of Titan and Mother Night which I very much enjoyed, and this seems equally good.

more on the grapes of wrath

I came across this amazing photo of a dust storm hitting a town in Texas during the Dust Bowl, the cataclysmic climate event which caused a huge migration of people out of farming areas of the U.S. and Canada in…

currently reading: the grapes of wrath

Rather ponderously paced, but an interesting insight into the drastic effect the corporatisation of farming had in the U.S. The theme of vast, anonymous commercial organisations arbitrarily destroying productive industries and lives certainly resonates in 2009.

music listening preferences and intelligence

I really enjoyed “Music That Makes You Dumb“, an admittedly psuedo-scientific analysis of intelligence vs musical preferences.  Basically, one Virgil Griffith has assembled data on music taste based on U.S. college campuses, then compared that data with the…

project mayhem

Fight Club is starting to look somewhat prophetic this week – a number of recent events are reminiscent of ‘Project Mayhem’, Tyler Durden’s plan to bring down the structures and sensibilities of conservative/capitalist America (apparently loosely based on the

more lese majeste – associate professor giles ji ungpakorn

Further to the post about Harry Nicolaides, I thought I would add a link to the case of Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a Thai academic who is seemingly about to be charged under the same antiquated and…

the strange case of harry nicolaides

This is disgraceful: a Melbourne man, Harry Nicolaides, has been jailed in Thailand for three years for insulting the Thai royal family in a novel he has apparently written.  The conviction is a result of Thailand’s anachronistic…

what is a “writer”?

I guiltily enjoyed this rant by Timothy Egan in the NY Times about people who become “writers” as a result of celebrity or unusual life experiences rather than the possession of actual writing ability.

Most of the writers

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more gore lore

Further to this post, Simon points to this fairly lengthy but fascinating excerpt from big Al’s new book.

Faith in the power of reason—the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting

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