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The Historical Surrealist Fiction of Aira

Book cover: An Episode In The Life of a Landscape Painter by Cesar Aira

Browsing Slightly Foxed Books, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, UK. On a high shelf, right at the top corner, the first book in the historical fiction section is a small paperback with a landscape painting on the front. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape PainterCÉSAR AIRA“Astonishing – turns Don Quixote into Picasso”-Harper’s I’m interested. It is barely… Continue reading The Historical Surrealist Fiction of Aira

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Book cover of Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro with quote "That's poetry. I'm full of poetry now. Rot and Poetry. Rotten Poetry."

The Snows of Kilimanjaro A typical Hemingway work full of nostalgia and grief for a life not lived to its fullest. One assumes nothing was good enough for Hemingway as, by most people’s standards, he lived a very full life. But a great deal of his work is pre-occupied with a sense of a lack… Continue reading The Snows of Kilimanjaro

From Dracula With Love

Book Dracula by Bram Stoker and Blu ray box of Nosferatu by F W Murnau

Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been a favourite book of mine for many years. That it features Whitby, a place I have often visited and accurately visualise in the reading, is a perk in itself. Francis Ford Coppola’s film may be the closest you will get to the book but it does not do full justice… Continue reading From Dracula With Love

I hate Jane Austen

5 hardback books by Jane Austin

I hate Jane Austen. Like most people I got swept along with the rather excellent 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen ‘s Pride and Prejudice. I loved the humour, dresses and… Darcy. Then something happened. I changed my mind. Maybe I just got older. Maybe studying English at university altered my perspective. Maybe I just… Continue reading I hate Jane Austen