Books Indexed
- Author: Tom Manion
- Publisher: Richer Publishing
- ISBN-10: 0953441539
- ISBN-13: 978-0953441532
Bringing back working class values?
Manion, for all his radical pretensions, is more orthodox than he imagines. His belief that public services should be redefined so that they ‘support and promote a safe, decent, healthy, responsible society’ is already in the mainstream of public service reform. The problems that he raises - both cultural and fiscal - are no less real and pressing for that, however, and he is to be commended for taking them seriously.
Monday, April 01, 2013
- Author: Jeanette Winterson
- Publisher: Hammer
- ISBN-10: 0099561859
- ISBN-13: 978-0099561859
The family from Hell in the local tower (block)
We never know much about these characters. Throughout the novel they remain a sort of raped, diseased and abused lumpen conglomerate, differentiated only by various repulsive physical characteristics and traits such as Elizabeth Device’s odd eyes, Jennet’s starving devouring of food (chicken including all the bones) and James’ madness etc.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
- Author: Simon Gough
- Publisher: Galley Beggar Press
- ISBN-10: 0957185308
- ISBN-13: 978-0957185302
Desire Under the Algarrobos
Margot Callas was six years older than Simon and 37 years younger than Graves. Surprise, surprise: Simon came down with a severe case of the hots, in its starry-eyed, mooncalf mode. Margo was strikingly lovely, and, in contrast with some of the other women elevated to a plinth in the Graves goddess gallery, intelligent and classy.
Monday, January 28, 2013
- Author: Jonathan Meades
- Publisher: Unbound
- ISBN-10: 1908717181
- ISBN-13: 978-1908717184
Pieties eviscerated
In considering Westbourne Grove, he writes of its ‘empty launderettes, iffy supermarkets, sparsely furnished letting agencies, unreconstructed Indian restaurants, beer halls, booths offering rock-bottom price international phone calls, money exchanges, cheap carpet shops and heavily defended mini cab offices.’ With a complete lack of socio-babble we’re straight back into the Notting Hill of Colin Maclnnes’s early yoof novel Absolute Beginners, or the film Performance, as if the superficial sleekness of Cameronian gentrification had never existed.
- Author: Pankaj Mishra
- Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
- ISBN-10: 0374249598
- ISBN-13: 978-0374249595
Encountering modernity
Even with the facts in hand, it is a fantasy to expect that those who reject universalism - or who advocate its violent and oppressive forms - will be converted without the conscious efforts of human beings to persuade them. From the Ruins of Empire, beyond all the great names, famous battles and obscure sects that adorn its pages, can perhaps be read as a defence of the importance of argument and debate, or, at the very least, critical engagement.
