Pechorin

LATEST ARTICLES ( 230 )

• #TBR20 and How I Buy Books

  

  I’m off on holiday soon, returning the week of 7 September. Before I go I thought I’d post a quick update on how I’m getting along with #tbr20. Read more

  Posted on 26 August 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Polite, Intelligent: Guys Like That Are My Meat.

  

  The Killer Inside Me, by Jim Thompson This is about as black as noir gets. 240-odd pages inside the head of a brutal and manipulative psychopath. Read more

  Posted on 20 August 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Sometimes What I Wouldn’t Give to Have Us Sitting in a Bar Again at 9:00 A.m....

  

  Jesus’ Son, by Denis Johnson It’s strange that a book can be simultaneously beautiful yet profoundly untrue. So much for Keats. Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Everything Seemed to Be Linked to Everything Else

  

  Gods Without Men, by Hari Kunzru As a teenager I had a copy of the Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology. I read it over and over. Read more

  Posted on 10 August 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• ‘You Have Always, I Must Say, a Smooth Explanation Ready.’

  

  The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett What is there to say about this one? This is as classic as classic gets, and I say that as someone who’s reviewed Don... Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Nothing Moved Across the Moor Except the Rain, Which Appeared as Suddenly and...

  

  Diving Belles, by Lucy Wood I took a bit of convincing to read this one. It’s a series of short stories that take Cornish folklore and place it into a... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Life Equals Structure Plus Activity.

  

  Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill This is perhaps the best written unmemorable book I’ve ever read. I could be wrong in that of course. The trouble about... Read more

  Posted on 23 July 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Oh Say Can You See…

  

  America in tweets I recently returned from my three-week road trip across the US. One day last week I summarised my thoughts on the trip in tweet form. Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Emotions Weren’t Like Washing. There Was No Call to Peg Them out for All the...

  

  An Awfully Big Adventure, by Beryl Bainbridge Beryl Bainbridge is an exceptionally funny writer, but she’s also a very cruel one. Being a character in a James M. Read more

  Posted on 18 June 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• the Miraculous Possibility of Their Conjunction

  

  Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust and translated by Kilmartin and Moncrieff I’m not sure why Proust is so rarely described as a great comic writer. Read more

  Posted on 15 June 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Ancient Cans Rusted Thin as Old Leaves

  

  Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson Mona Lisa Overdrive is the third book in Gibson’s famous “Sprawl” trilogy, following up on the extraordinary Neuromancer... Read more

  Posted on 12 June 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• I Paid Little Attention to the Insistent Looks of Men.

  

  Troubling Love. by Elena Ferrante and translated by Ann Goldstein This’ll be a short review, because unfortunately even after only a month or so I can already... Read more

  Posted on 05 June 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Freddy Reviewed His Life and Realized That Altruism Had Been His Major Fault.

  

  Miami Blues, by Charles Willeford If you’re even slightly a crime fan, I can save you some time on this review. You’ll like this one. Go pick up a copy. If... Read more

  Posted on 03 June 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• A Place Should Never for Too Long Go Against Its Nature.

  

  City of Bohane, by Kevin Barry Whatever’s wrong with us is coming in off that river. No argument: the taint of badness on the city’s air is a taint off that... Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• You’re Old Enough to Know That the Fact That Your Statement is True Only Makes I...

  

  Far Eastern Tales, by W. Somerset Maugham When I was a kid, Maugham was often held out as the model of a great short story writer, almost the definition of... Read more

  Posted on 26 May 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• a Feeling on the Brow, in the Eyes and on the Lips

  

  Remember, Body …, by CP Cavafy and translated by Avi Sharon When I read recently Mathias Enard’s Zone, I made a note of some writers mentioned in the text that ... Read more

  Posted on 20 May 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Creature Must Take Care Not to Forget That the Man is a Hunter.

  

  The Blue Fox, by Sjón and translated by Victoria Cribb Most literature, for me, works as well as an ebook as it does as a paperback. Sometimes better,... Read more

  Posted on 07 May 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• She is So Terribly Afraid of Me.

  

  Margaret and I, by Kate Wilhelm Joachim Boaz of the rather wonderful retro SF blog (with a strong focus on literary and slipstream SF among other things) Scienc... Read more

  Posted on 05 May 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• My #TBR20

  Scroll down if you just want to skip straight to the pictures of books… TBR20 is an idea of Eva Stalker’s, with the aim being to focus on reading more and on... Read more

  Posted on 28 April 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• “It is Difficult,” the Slime Mold Thought Morosely, to No One in Particular,...

  

  Clans of the Alphane moon, by Philip K. Dick Any book that features a telepathic yellow Ganymedean slime mold as a major character can’t be all bad, even if it... Read more

  Posted on 27 April 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE