My new year’s resolution for 2009 is to not recommend any book until I’ve finished it. That gives me a couple of weeks to indulge my particular blogging vice, and there’s no better place to start than Abraham B. Yehoshua’s wonderful A Woman in Jerusalem, which I can’t recommend highly enough even though I’m only [...]
The TMO Litblog
The TMO litblog is a collection of short posts, reviews, and tweets dedicated to literary fiction and book news.
Carte Blanche – Carlo Lucarelli and the Italian crime novel
Thursday, November 13th, 2008While Carlo Lucarelli’s detective novel Carte Blanche includes plenty of standard genre devices, it’s unlikely to turn up in the excellent ‘do it yourself giallo generator‘ (via Detectives without borders). For one thing its title is too short, and doesn’t contain an animal (not that the inclusion of an animal in the title necessarily makes [...]
A couple of minutes with Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008At the start of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, the narrator is rung-up by a mysterious female voice who demands, like a survey-taker, ten minutes of his time: “Ten minutes, please,” said a woman on the other end. I’m good at recognizing people’s voices, but this was not one I knew. “Excuse me? [...]
Self Censorship: The Jewel of Medina and The Portage of A.H to San Cristobal
Friday, October 31st, 2008I have no idea whether Sherry Jone’s novel The Jewel of Medina originally deserved to be published, and I’m not quick off the bat to scold Random House, the publisher which decided at the last minute to not publish the novel after they were warned that it may cause offence to Muslims. Publishing is a subjective [...]
Roberto Saviano and the new Italian epic
Friday, October 10th, 2008Regular readers of Three Monkeys will know that we have a soft-spot for the Italian literary collective Wu Ming, the people behind novels like Q and 54 (which is very much on our ‘to-review’ list). Wu Ming I (there are five of them) has just published a thoughtful piece where he attempts to define what [...]
Writers and the Credit Crunch – Margaret Atwood and Tim Parks
Sunday, October 5th, 2008I very rarely have the cause or inclination to browse to the Financial Times, but was glad to have done so today. The immediate reasoning was to check for news on the troubled bank of which I am, unfortunately, an account holder. No particular joy there, but instead I stumbled upon an extract from Margaret [...]
Jim Crace retiring – The Guardian catches up
Friday, September 26th, 2008Over at the Guardian book blog there’s a debate blowing after a post dealing with Jim Crace’s plans to retire. The post has provoked all sorts of reactions regarding the merits of a writer’s age/youth, many largely missing the point made by Crace. Perhaps the most worrying thing, though, regarding the post is the implication [...]
Setting free the books
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008Some posts ago we took up the ‘who’ll be literature’s radiohead’ argument up, suggesting that there are already a number of established authors who have been giving away their work a la In Rainbows – for example the Wu Ming foundation or Mega-bestseller Neil Gaiman. Word comes through (via Lizzy’s Literary Life) of a new [...]
