An interview with Thomas Homer-Dixon
Thomas Homer-Dixon seems the archetypal academic: greying hair, pale blue shirt tucked into pressed trousers, blazer folded by his side. He speaks in measured tones: earnestly, urgently, with a rising undercurrent of frustration that only occasionally spills over. It would be impossible, in his line of work, not to be frustrated.
Thomas Homer-Dixon [...]
Entries from January 2008
January 21, 2008
Up, Down and All Around
January 20, 2008
Darkmans review
Nicola Barker’s Darkmans was the ‘dark horse’ of this year’s Man Booker shortlist. As we all know, it didn’t win, but in my humble opinion, Darkmans is a literary masterpiece – and one of the most endlessly fascinating books I have ever read.
Reading Darkmans is a bit like watching one of those nature documentaries where [...]
January 20, 2008
Ding dong, Norman Mailer is dead
Ding dong, Norman Mailer is dead. Predictably, the death notices for the celebrity writer, ‘new journalism’ trailblazer and literary heavyweight ranged from breathless tributes to his towering genius and his relentless pursuit of The Great American Novel, to gleeful posthumous hatchet jobs. I guess the truth is somewhere in between, though I confess to dry [...]
January 20, 2008
Best Books 2007
It’s hard to narrow down my favourite books this year, but if I MUST… The Booker shortlisted Darkmans (Nicola Barker, Fourth Estate) was the best book I have read in many years. Dark, layered, mysterious and surprisingly funny, it’s a novel about (seemingly) ordinary people in an ordinary English town haunted by history, embodied by [...]
