Books Category
The latest books and literature reviews, comment, features and interviews, with extracts from famous texts and neglected gems.
JK Rowling crime writer identity was revealed over a Twitter chat
WE know JK Rowling was ‘Robert Galbraith’, writer of the crime novel The Cuckoo’s Calling because a friend of a solicitor at Russells, her lawyers, told someone on Twitter.
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Posted: 31st, July 2013 | In: Books | Comment (1)
50 Shades of Rainbow Dash: My Little Pony erotic fans fiction exists (extracts)
MY Little Pony fan fiction is a thing that exists. It’s 50 Shades of Rainbow Dash.
These are a few extracts from the genre:
Rarity’s Erotic Massage by ZeroJanitor
“Hello to you too, Rarity.” said Twilight. “I came by to inform you that there’s going to be party at Sugarcube Corner at six o’clock tonight, hosted by our very own Pinkie Pie! There’s going to be food, games, movies, and between you and me, I think Pinkie’s going to make her ‘special’ punch.”
…
Twilight just stared at the ironing board in confusion. Rarity noticed the flustered look on her face.
“Oop! Hold on one second, Twilight!” Rarity activated her horn and pulled one of the dresser drawers open and lifted a screwdriver out. She used this to loosen the screw at the focal point of the board’s legs at about the speed of a power drill. The legs started to collapse, causing the ironing board to fall closer to the floor. At about 20 inches off the ground, Rarity drilled the screw back in and put the screwdriver back in the drawer. “There! Much better!”
Twilight hopped onto the table. Her legs dangled over the side, almost touching the ground, as her face was pressed firmly into the throw pillow. “You’re sure about this?” she asked, in a slightly muffled voice.
…
Though Rarity was a bit disgusted by the idea of Twilight’s lubricant getting on her ironing board, she enjoyed the idea even more.
…
Missionary position is tricky for ponies, but perfectly doable, evidenced by Rarity now pumping with more vigor than ever
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In 1929 Jean-Paul Sartre took mescaline – that’s when the crabs started to follow him
IN 1929, Jean-Paul Sartre met Simone De Beauvoir and took some mescaline. These two events were not linked. He recalled the experience in conversation with political science professor, John Gerassi:
Sartre: … I ended up having a nervous breakdown.
Gerassi: You mean the crabs?
Satre: Yeah, after I took mescaline, I started seeing crabs around me all the time. They followed me in the streets, into class. I got used to them. I would wake up in the morning and say, “Good morning, my little ones, how did you sleep?” I would talk to them all the time. I would say, “O.K., guys, we’re going into class now, so we have to be still and quiet,” and they would be there, around my desk, absolutely still, until the bell rang.
Gerassi: A lot of them?
Sartre: Actually, no, just three or four.
Grassi: But you knew they were imaginary?
Sartre: Oh, yes. But after I finished school, I began to think I was going crazy, so I went to see a shrink, a young guy then with whom I have been good friends ever since, Jacques Lacan. We concluded that it was fear of being alone, fear of losing the camaraderie of the group. You know, my life changed radically from my being one of a group, which included peasants and workers, as well as bourgeois intellectuals, to it being just me and Castor. The crabs really began when my adolescence ended. At first, I avoided them by writing about them — in effect, by defining life as nausea — but then as soon as I tried to objectify it, the crabs appeared. And then they appeared whenever I walked somewhere. Not when I was writing, just when I was going someplace. … The crabs stayed with me until the day I simply decided that they bored me and that I just wouldn’t pay attention to them. And then the war came, the stalag, the Resistance, and the big political battles after the war.
From the book Talking With Sartre: Conversations and Debates.
Posted: 18th, July 2013 | In: Books, Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
Trayvon Martin: Juror B37 and her book’s agent crawl back under their rocks
JUROR B37 sat on the George Zimmerman trial that questioned how Trayvon Martin came to be shot dead. She and her five colleagues cleared Zimmerman of murder. And then B37 got to thinking about her career. How about a book? She got an agent, named Sharlene Martin of Martin Literary Management LLC, notable for her work shilling for Amanda Knox’s ex Raffaele Sollecito.
Martin hoped Juror B37’s book would help the great unwashed…
“…understand the commitment it takes to serve and be sequestered on a jury in a highly publicized murder trial …. It could open a whole new dialogue about laws that may need to be revised and revamped to suit a 21st century way of life.”
Juror B37 went on CNN to for some marketing for her public service tome:
“I think both were responsible for the situation they had gotten themselves into. I think they both could have walked away.”
And then Juror B37 had second thoughts. The market (via Twitter and a peptition on Change.org) had told her that her project was reprehensible:
“I realize it was necessary for our jury to be sequestered in order to protest our verdict from unfair outside influence, but that isolation shielded me from the depth of pain that exists among the general public over every aspect of this case. The potential book was always intended to be a respectful observation of the trial from my and my husband’s perspectives solely and it was to be an observation that our ‘system’ of justice can get so complicated that it creates a conflict with our ‘spirit’ of justice.
“Now that I am returned to my family and to society in general, I have realized that the best direction for me to go is away from writing any sort of book and return instead to my life as it was before I was called to sit on this jury.”
Martin did a reverse ferret:
“After careful consideration regarding the proposed book project with Zimmerman Juror B37, I have decided to rescind my offer of representation in the exploration of a book based upon this case.”
Says B37:
“I have realized that the best direction for me to go is away from writing any sort of book and return instead to my life as it was before …”
And that’s a woman seen as a peer of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman deemed fit to judge them…
Posted: 16th, July 2013 | In: Books, Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Louis Smith has only read on book properly – his autobopgraphy
OLYMPIC gymnast and Strictly Come Dancing champion Louis Smith has only ever read one book. Can you guess which the Peterborough-born pommel-horse expert read? Yep, it’s his autobiography, the 240-page pot boiler Louis: My Story So Far.
Says Smith:
“It would have to be my book, as it’s the first book I’ve read properly.”
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Posted: 14th, July 2013 | In: Books, Sports | Comment (1)
Apple conspired to keep e-book prices artifically high as libraries die
BOOKS are not just objects to buy and trade. The BBC reports on a ruling that Apple “conspired with publishers to fix the price of electronic books”.
And those are the electronic books that thanks to convoluted copyright rules you are not permitted to pass on to friends, as you can with an actual paper book.
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Posted: 10th, July 2013 | In: Books, Money, Technology | Comment
Objects of desire: the goth colouring book
OBJECTS of desire presents The Goth Colouring Book:
Spotter: MK
In 1935 Ernest Hemingway wrote this letter in praise of ‘the bottle’
IN 1935, Ernest Hemingway wrote to Ivan Kashkin, a Russian translator and critic,. The Post Post Script is memorable:
“P.P.S. Don’t you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky? When you are cold and wet what else can warm you? Before an attack who can say anything that gives you the momentary well being that rum does? I would as soon not eat at night as not to have red wine and water. The only time it isn’t good for you is when you write or when you fight. Yuu have to do that cold. But it always helps my shooting. Modern life, too, is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief. Let me know if my books make any money and will come to Moscow and we will find somebody that drinks and drink my royalties up to end the mechanical oppression.”
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John Steinbeck on the male beard versus the female beard
JOHN Steinbeck on the beard:
I cultivate this beard not for the usual given reasons of skin trouble or pain of shaving, nor for the secret purpose of covering a weak chin, but as pure unblushing decoration, much as a peacock finds pleasure in his tail. And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus,” – John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley.
Photo: This 1965 file photo shows author John Steinbeck winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize for literature.
A User’s Guide to Neglectful Parenting – the Shredded Wheat saga
GUY Delisle, a French Canadian, has written A User’s Guide to Neglectful Parenting. In this extract Delisle and his daughter chat about a box of Shredded Wheat:
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Huxley vs. Orwell – the comic inspired by Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death
HUXLEY vs. Orwell: the comic, by Stuart McMillen adapts Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death argument that Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future in Brave New World was more prescient than George Orwell in 1984:
Oscar Wilde explains his comment that ‘All art is quite useless’
IN 1890, Bernulf Clegg wrote asked Oscar Wilde to expand on a line in his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray: “All art is quite useless.” Wilde replied:
16, TITE STREET,
CHELSEA. S.W.My dear Sir
Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way. It is superbly sterile, and the note of its pleasure is sterility. If the contemplation of a work of art is followed by activity of any kind, the work is either of a very second-rate order, or the spectator has failed to realise the complete artistic impression.
A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. That is all that is to be said about our relations to flowers. Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. It is not part of its essence. It is accidental. It is a misuse. All this is I fear very obscure. But the subject is a long one.
Truly yours,
Oscar Wilde
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Posted: 28th, May 2013 | In: Books, Celebrities, Flashback | Comment (1)
Poptastic: extracts from Tony Blackburn’s fantastic autobiography
EXTRACTS from Poptastic! My Life in Radio, by Tony Blackburn, as selected by Eamonn Forde. It turns there is more to Tony than admiration for Neil Sedaka and pressed trousers. Here’s what Tony didn’t cover in his first autobiography, 1985’s Tony Blackburn: The Living Legend.
First few facts about Tony for our overseas and younger readers:
Blackburn’s was the first voice heard on Radio One in 1967. In his album Tony Blackburn Sings, he crooned a version of The White Cliffs of Dover. The rest of career saw him become remarkably uncool.
Now for the extracts. Nice!
Says Tony:
“I’d say that seeing Bobby Vee perform was far more enjoyable than watching The Beatles in their prime. I was never big on Elvis – I prefer Perry Como – and I’ll take Alvin Stardust over David Bowie any day.”
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Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Books, Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Zombie Thatcher – the book of Maggie in the afterlife
BOOK of the day: Zombie Thatcher by Bronwen Winter Phoenix (Author), Al Terry (Illustrator):
Posted: 3rd, May 2013 | In: Books, Politicians | Comment
Fabulous Frisbee 1977: A model shows us the Basic Catching Postions
SO. Summer’s coming and you’re wondering who to throw a frisbee like the dudes in Hard Ticket to Hawaii. Well, in 1978, Fabulous Frisbee told us how:
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Posted: 28th, April 2013 | In: Books, Flashback, Sports | Comment
John le Carré: the cocaine that gave him a painful erection and pissing on Geoege Bush
JOHN le Carré is profiled in the New York Times. In another life, one of Anorak’s writers used to serve him his dinner at the Bacchus restaurant in London’s Hampstead. He was gracious, generous and affable. What else do we know about him?
He says on fox hunting:
“At least they aren’t hunting that poor goddamn thing with drones.”
On MI5:
“It was like working on a great newspaper. They were really funny people, not institutionalized, not too corporate in their minds and often very bright with curious interests.”
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Posted: 26th, April 2013 | In: Books, Celebrities | Comment
The TEXAS-ISRAELI WAR 1999: Charlie Bagle, over
IN 1999, those rebellious Texans kidnap the President of the US of A. Only a bunch of fearless Israelis can save him. Jake Saunders and Howard Waldrop report on the TEXAS-ISRAELI WAR 1999.
The report was made in 1974, which appears odd (but it’s how newspaper reporting works).
On August 12, 1992, England’s tiny nuclear arsenal fell on Ireland, on South Africa, and finally on China. Instantly the planet went up in flames. In the first half year of what was to be called the War of ’92, half the Earth’s population perished. The United States was reduced to a vast underpeopled land — and, to make matters worse, Texas had seceded and taken her precious oil reserves. But Israel, virtually untouched in a world ravaged by war, was painfully overpopulated.
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Is Microwave Cooking for One the saddest book ever written?
IS Microwave Cooking for One the saddest book ever written? Author Marie T Smith looks happy enough with her midnight snack, though. She’s a good eater is Marie…
Spotter: Danny. K.
Everyday Racism in books: Simple Edition by A Little Nigger
It tapped into a theme. Earlier, G.H. Thompson had illustrated Ten Little Nigger Boys, a book he followed up with work on Ten Little Nigger Girls. This was sexual equality racism. Although in the girls’ version the females start at 10 and disappear. The boys grow in number.
Now grab your golliwog and read on….
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The oddest book title of the year is about goblins charming chickens
THE winner of the Bookseller’s Diagram Prize for the weirdest book title of the year is…Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop. The blurb tells readers:
Plagued by pixies, goaded by goblins or bothered by gnomes? Help is on the way! Help is here. This is the essential primer for banishing the dark Fairy creatures that are lurking in the dark corners and crevices of your life. In this charming guide, fairy hunter Reginald Bakeley offers practical instructions to clear your home and garden of goblins and banish them forever!
The word charming somewhat kills it, no? It makes the book sound twee and small. ‘Offensive’ would have been better geared to marketing, or ‘inappropriate”. Both are words trending with buzz.
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Emma Watson won’t be getting really naked in Fifty Shades of Grey
FIFTY Shades of Grey completely took over the world, giving people the chance to indulge themselves in the darker side of Mills and Boon and revel in some of the most clunky euphemisms for the vagina ever committed to a page. All good fun and a rather sweet way of getting your rocks off, compared to brutal 3 minute internet clips of tattooed LA starlets getting ravaged by men hung like wheelie-bins.
A film adaptation of EL James’ ‘Fifty Shades’ was inevitable and 99% of the world’s press rubbed their thighs with mucky fever, talking openly about which famous actress they’d most like to see getting spanked on the silver screen.
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Posted: 18th, March 2013 | In: Books, Film, Reviews | Comments (2)
The John Nathan-Turner story: Sex, paedos and Dr Who at the BBC
IAN Berriman has reviewed The Life And Scandalous Times Of John Nathan-Turner. He died in 2002. In life, he was notable as the producer of the hit BBC TV show Doctor Who (1980-89). Given the revelations about BBC stalwart Jimmy Savile and other allegations levelled against other former BBC employees, the book’s publication is sure to be of interest to the elite in Broadcasting House.
Chapter Eight is entitled “Hanky Panky”. Author Richard Marson asks: “Was John Nathan-Turner a paedophile?”
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Posted: 13th, March 2013 | In: Books, Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment
