Congratulations to China Miéville winning the Arthur.C. Clarke Award 2010. The City & The City is a strong and worthy winner of the Awards but questions are being raised – is it science fiction? And this question I’ve been struggling with all day. I don’t know why it was today that I really questioned its place [...]
Posts under ‘Award Winners’
This Week is… BSFA Best Novel Nominee 2010 Week
When the nominations were announced in January I said I had the vague idea of reading the shortlist. Well I am. And this week I’ll be doing just that. I’ll be reviewing them first: Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday* And then on Sunday, the day of the announcement, I’ll be making my own choice. *as Ark [...]
Lists
Today has been a day of lists. Like the list of books for June that I’m still sorting out. If the Fantasy Book Critic is anything to go by it could be quite mammoth so have I feeling that I might have to be quite brutal and cut out one or two um-and-ah books. SF [...]
Update: Catching up – Books, Blogs and other stuff part 2
Now I’m moving to all the posts that are scarcely piling up in my RSS reader (NetNewsWire or FeedDemon depending if I’m on the mac or the PC). So what follows is probably in the order in which it appears in the list. Though I’m skipping all the art related blogs I like (though if [...]
And that’s not all
There’s more. To be honest there is always more. But these look like good reads. I’ve got some and some are waiting on my Amazon.co.uk wishlist. If is a current theme in my reading it has to be life and death and how to avoid dying. In The Dreaming Void they have several ways of [...]
Booker – the odds reduced. We have a shortlist
Edit: Well I got John’s list totally wrong (thanks for the headsup) so I’m re-writing this post. Actually we have three. The two that I’d be more inclined to trust and the ‘real’ shortlist. Book prizes are a wonderful way of narrowing down the vast number of books published each year and highlighting some of [...]
Debut Review: The Good Thief’s Guide to Amerstdam by Chris Ewan
Title: The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam Author: Chris Ewan Publisher: Long Barn Books Published: 2007 Price: 12.99 Bookshelf I’ve been meaning to get my hands on this book for quite some time. Any book that can survive the fire of Susan Hill has got to be good, right? Yes, definitely. Is it a big [...]
Bits and Bobs
I’m not very good at waiting and patience is never something I’m good at. So I’m wondering how long do you wait before assuming that you’re never going to get a response to that email you’ve sent? I waited a week then sent a follow-up and still nothing. It’s just very disappointing to think that [...]
The Man Booker is out
…and what do you mean you’ve only heard of one of them: Darkmans by Nicola Barker (4th Estate) Self Help by Edward Docx (Picador) The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon) The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape) The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton) The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies [...]
What to read next?
This is always a hard choice for me. On the one hand I have books that have one the shelves for ages(read years) that I should give time to and then there is the pile of new releases that are shouting at me we’re new read me now! And usually I try and balance personal [...]