Got paid today and so a pretty good haul was the order of the day in Waterstone’s:
- The Master – Colm Toibin
- The Wind-up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Marakami
- Love, Sex & Tragedy – Simon Goldhill
- The Remains of the Day – Kazuro Ishiguro
- Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
- So Now Who Do We Vote For? – John Harris
All were in the 3-for-2 so only spent £30. Only! Anyway, because of my massive outlay, I did at least get a freebie copy of that Waterstone’s magazine which is handy to have near the toilet.
Nice list of novels but out of all of them Ishiguro is most likely the best. A great study of power and social class in a very closed soceity. Has very good echoes of the far east.
The Remains of the Day – Kazuro Ishiguro
Now the John Harris. Have to say that his book on Brit Pop was a veray good idea. However it was far to long for the subject matter, Harris needs to learn about struture. In fact for the central discouse of the book it would have sounded a lot better as a tright ten thousand word essay. Then saying this he may have learnt some lesson from that book. But I’m unsure about reading the new one.
So Now Who Do We Vote For? – John Harris
Thanks Nick. The Harris was a bit of an impulse buy, and I am happy to admit that it was one my ‘free’ ones. It is less than 200 pages long though, I think, so he may well have picked up on the need for brevity. My main interest in the book is for the chapter on schools – in Billy Bragg’s review in The Guardian, he mentioned that “In Doncaster, a group of concerned parents take on the Labour council and a multi-millionaire Christian fundamentalist car dealer who wish to turn a good and improving local comprehensive into a creationist city academy” – this sort of thing scares the life out of me.
If you’re a big reader, you might like Palimpsest a reading based forum I help run.
‘… local comprehensive into a creationist city academy”’
No way. Teach the bible my all means. But teach Darwin as well. Personally I’m a Darwin myself and approach to the bible is more or less rooted in Joseph Campbell and Claude Levi-Strauss. That’s the way it should remain. The bible as a book that has shaped our culture: only though in terms of literature and narrative. We can discuss the idea of God, and yet when we begin to do so we find that there are many God’s: all of them being concepts rather the reaility.
You’re right. Once I have found out more and read the chapter in question I will give the issue a thorough Googling and see what I can find.
Just a little word of advice before you google your head off. Treat all creationist rooted idea with a pinch of salt. They are more about a defence a bible rooted creation veiw point then about the logic of a good arguement, In other words it’s normally religion grasping at straw while trying to pratice censorship to suit their own idealogical world view.