Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat (1970) Putnam Publishing, 1984 In between, I forget how chilling they are. Muriel Spark novels. Somehow I mix them up with other skinny reads (like Penelope Fitzgerald novels) and other UK authors (like Penelope Lively), and they don't seem so upsetting, sitting there tidily pressed between
As November's reads settle out, the 2010's reading challenges fall into line, and in quiet moments I am reflecting on the reading year and making bookish plans for 2011. You know how it is? How many bookish promises we readers make to ourselves, before the reader's fickle gaze shifts to
Lucy Maud Montgomery's Birthday November 30, 1874 - April 24, 1942 To mark her birthday, here is a quote from Mary Henley Rubio's Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings (TO: Doubleday - Random House, 2008): 181-2. It's a long quote, but a book-soaked one; I've broken the paragraph so that
Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) New Directions, 1946 My friend Margaret put me onto Nathanael West, which is ironic because it was by virtue of her not having recognized his name in a discussion of literary masterpieces; she was relieved that I hadn't heard of him either. Ignorance loves company, even
Suzette Mayr's Venous Hum Arsenal Pulp, 2004 Yes, that's right: it's a mouth. Somehow too many canines, pink fleshy tongue: it's the cover of Venous Hum. Eye-catching from the start, but it makes more sense after you've finished reading. "It's an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence announcing the end
