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Hunger by Knut Hamsun. So our un-named narrator is an aspiring writer in Oslo (during the 50-year period around the turn of the 20th ce...

A couple of musical RIPs to catch up on. Firstly, Richie Havens , who died on April 22nd. I really only encountered Richie Havens and his mu...

I caught the second half of The Challenger on BBC2 last night. Interesting stuff , for all that the source material is pretty familiar to ...

Don't even think about bothering phoning me or ringing the doorbell between 6:20pm and 6:50pm each weekday night, because I will ignore ...

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell. Meet Inspector Kurt Wallander: a tough, uncompromising Swedish cop.  Han spelar inte i boken, men...

Let's laugh at some Jews. I don't mean in a Holocaust-y kind of way , merely at the ridiculousness of some of their more outlandish ...

Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie. Virginia "Vinnie" Miner is a fiftysomething American academic on her way over to Britain for...

Well. What to say about Thatch ? Or, at least, what to say that hasn't already been said, and since I haven't read absolutely ever...

With reference to this BBC News story about "name meshing" as practised by zany modern people getting married I'll just say: ...

A Stone Boat by Andrew Solomon . Harry is a concert pianist, travelling round the world knocking out a bit of the old Schubert, Rachmanin...

More interesting deconstruction, reconstruction and redecoration work going on at Halibut Towers at the moment, this time in our downstairs ...

All I've ever wanted out of life was for people to say: that Dave, he's a pretty straight guy. You know, when he says a thing, you ...

These days we can't just drop everything and jaunt up Pen Y Fan at the drop of a hat, as parental responsibilities tend to intervene. ...

Robbie Robertson , chief creative force behind The Band and intermittent solo artist over the past 30 years or so, and the Duke himself, ...

Here's a thing I've never really understood: house names. I mean, I understand that back in the day some sort of descriptive thing w...

Stand by for a bit more fuckwitted Daily Mail innumeracy . What's wrong with this headline? The answer, of course, is that the cl...

Light and shade, tears and laughter, etc. etc. on the Radio 4 slot I like to call "the one after the Today programme" this week. O...

This week's literary Dead Pool also includes the rather more heavyweight name of Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe . All I can tell you ...

I see that James Herbert has died , though of course we shouldn't rule out the possibility that he may yet return as a hideously decom...

Former world and Olympic downhill skiing champion and golfing WAG Lindsey Vonn , and former world tennis #1 and golfing WAG Caroline Wozni...