The TMO Litblog
The TMO litblog is a collection of short posts, reviews, and tweets dedicated to literary fiction and book news.
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
It’s the elephant in the corner really, isn’t it? Last week’s announcement of the Booker prize longlist has been one of the main talking points for literary minded souls, and not just in the Commonwealth and Ireland. Delays in the launch of this blog meant that it was hardly worthwhile posting on the longlist – [...]
Tags: booker prize, joseph o'neill, salman rushdie, tim winton
Posted in Literary News, Novels | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
IFC.com publishes a list of titles of recent books that, according to list compiler Maud Newton, would make great movies. Amongst the interesting choices* is The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas – a book which I feel inclined to agree would make a good film, but not, perhaps, for the same reasons. Newton correctly laments what [...]
Tags: film tie-ins, narrative voices, rupert thomas, scarlett thomas
Posted in Novels | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
Glamourising torture didn’t start with Fox TV’s 24. It’s an international, or at least anglo-saxon sport with a proud pedigree. “What I cannot understand is why, in America, the last middle-class country, you still cannot beat this loss of faith in the individual. I’ve had this argument out. I was reviewing for a London newspaper, and [...]
Tags: frank o'connor, short stories, war on terror
Posted in Novels, Politics | No Comments »
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
Having just finished Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, it was a pleasure to stumble upon an interview with the author (on his site, via Powells.com) where he discussed the process that led him to choose the narrative voice of the novel. I had tried variations of minimalism in the third person, with voices ranging fable [...]
Tags: booker prize, david foster wallace, lydia davis, mohsin hamid, narrative voices, thumbs down, war on terror
Posted in Novels | No Comments »
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
I have only myself to blame. After I read the e-mail rant heard around the world, my curiosity got the better of me when I spotted a copy of Giles Coren’s first novel, Winkler, on the shelves of my local library. When I say “novel”, I should point out that Coren’s book is not really [...]
Tags: bad sex, english novel, Giles Coren, kingsley amis, social comedy, thumbs down
Posted in Novels | 1 Comment »
Friday, August 1st, 2008
With a sparkling lack of imagination, perhaps, I find the best way to approach this intriguing novel by the late Benjamin Tammuz – former literary editor of Israeli newspaper Haaretz – is through his co-national Amos Oz. But, read the following passage about opening gambits between author and reader, from Oz’s collection of essays on [...]
Tags: european novels, great openings, israeli authors, Mediterranean fiction, spy thrillers
Posted in Novels | No Comments »
