Author Archives: kara

About kara

We know our letters just fine, and we know our numbers to a certain point, but books were always the realm of four-eyed poindexters with bowler hats and cravats. That’s why it pleases us so that America’s proud illiterates are finally stepping up and pushing back against the crushing tide of education that threatens to swallow us all into its gaping maw of checked facts. Champions of the Ignorantiat will not like it here.

What Would Wallander do?

Posted on June 3, 2010 by kara

Swedish crime writer and personal hero of mine, Henning Mankell, was aboard the Swedish ship Sofia, one of six ships in the flotilla carrying aid to Gaza. The 25-strong crew, including Mankell – as well as Nobel peace laureate Mairead … Continue reading →

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I Would Like to Inspect the Hanging Chads, Please.

Posted on May 30, 2010 by kara

The “Lost Man Booker Prize” has been awarded to……..the wrong book. The designated “best book” of 1970 has finally won its Man Booker prize. Troubles, by J. G. Farrell, was anointed the winner of the “Lost Man Booker Prize,” a … Continue reading →

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On the Nightstand

Posted on May 30, 2010 by kara

I’m currently reading the new biography of Muriel Spark, the secretive author of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” who referred to herself as “Lucrezia Borgia in trousers” due to her ability to strike fear into the heart of anyone … Continue reading →

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Happy Birthday, Nancy Drew! 80 Years Old, Sweet 16.

Posted on May 27, 2010 by kara

I am both proud and ashamed to admit that I have an entire room dedicated to the annals of teen detective fiction. I own and have read not only every Nancy Drew mystery multiple times, but all the other teen … Continue reading →

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From Allen Lane to Amazon: the story of publishing in the 20th century

Posted on May 27, 2010 by kara

Publishers such as Allen Lane and Paul Hamlyn revolutionised British publishing in the 20th century, turning it from a cosy club serving the elite into an industrial powerhouse. Iain Stevenson charts a century of triumph for the printed word neat … Continue reading →

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IS This in Fact………………………………………………. THE MOST HORRIFYING BOOK EVER WRITTEN?

Posted on May 25, 2010 by kara

Most horrifying?

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If Martin Amis is Filmable, What Isn’t?

Posted on May 22, 2010 by kara

Remember Money: A Suicide Note? I love this book! I even love the gross protagonist, “John Self”, a fat, gambling, chain smoking, pill-popping, rotting toothed alcoholic, guzzling junk food, lines of cocaine “the size of a hangman’s rope”, booze, cigarettes, … Continue reading →

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Ye Olde Printing Press

Posted on May 11, 2010 by kara

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Writer du jour

Posted on May 9, 2010 by kara

Iris Murdoch Influenced by many, including Freud and Sartre, and a committed Russophile, Iris Murduch was nonetheless a complete individual with an inspired moral sense. Irish-English Dame Murdoch was a novelist, playwright, critic and philosophy professor. A prolific philosophical novelist … Continue reading →

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Writer du jour

Posted on May 7, 2010 by kara

Lord Byron Famously described by his maitresse Caroline Lamb as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” – in the 1990’s famously invoked by Dylan McKay, who we hoped would be all these things too but ultimately only shared LB’s reckless … Continue reading →

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