BY JOE NUTT I’ve always empathised with the charming character Bill Nighy plays in the Richard Curtis film, About Time. He uses his peculiarly inherited ability to time travel, for the most admirable of purposes; he rereads Dickens. I’m perfectly aware that that statement alone risks losing readers, not just because sitting quietly on one’s own, engrossed in a fiction isn’t high up on the … Continue reading Why and What Do You Read?
BY STEWART SLATER I have known Bernie Gunther for about 15 years and, although our contact has been sporadic, I know him well. I know about his job, and his troubles with colleagues and superiors. I know many of the women who have entered his life, and I know they have all left it again. I know about his travels. I know whom he hates. … Continue reading A Particular Type of Sadness
BY ROGER WATSON Elif Shafak is a Turkish feminist writer. A contemporary of Turkey’s ‘man of letters’ Orhan Pamuk, and, like Pamuk, persecuted by the present Turkish government, she chooses to live in England. Pamuk, on the other hand, under constant armed guard, chooses to remain in Istanbul. Being an outspoken writer in Turkey is a dangerous business. The topics covered by Shafak are wide … Continue reading The Island of Missing Trees
BY RUCHIRA GHOSH She may well have been an icon of colonialism, pertaining to a bygone era, but modern-day aficionados of English literature in my home country India simply cannot do without Agatha Christie. This prolific author whose novels were outsold only by The Bible and Shakespeare (an unbroken record yet) still enjoys global popularity (including erstwhile colonies of Great Britain) decades after she walked … Continue reading India Loves Agatha
