I may be 30, but I act 15. I am adrift in New York. I'm too clever by half for my own good. I live on puns and snide, sarcastic asides ... I don't look too deeply into myself or anyone else — everyone else is boring or a phony anyway.
Trust me and Mal and Marian to end the Writers Festival with Spotlight on Karen Finley ;-) You ask who is Karen Finley the woman smeared with chocolate The Ultimate Black Sheep: Shut Up and Love Me
Rockin' the Right: John Miller has the 50 greatest conservative rock songs - Shut up and sing Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Let’s Impeach the President
Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Writes and wrongs
Michael Fishwick knows both sides of the story about the cut-throat book industry
Don’t expect Waterstone’s to rate it,” said my publisher. “They only gave Helen Simpson a B.” What a multitude of woes are embedded in these words; the omnipotence of a book chain, its willingness to give a lower category, and hence smaller distribution, to the author of the justly celebrated Hey Yeah Right Get a Life, and the even lower expectations that lesser writers - in this case, me - must enjoy. And what makes it worse is that I know all about this stuff because I’m a publishing director. Being published is a refined exercise in S&M. Being in the business just gives it that additional piquancy - untold opportunities for humiliation and misery.
• The emergence of books into the world is like some great lava flow, unstoppable and with its own momentum Why on earth am I doing this? [The loyalty of football fans and their willingness to pay high prices to support their club is the subject of new research The price of loyalty ; The publishing industry is not known as a bastion of conservatism - The overwhelmingly liberal trade managed to make time for conservatives during BookExpo America Where's the Nuance? ]
• · Are libraries taking advantage of the increasing digitisation of antiquarian books to sell off their valuable stock? Flogging folios ; What do Page Six veterans think they can do for literature? The New Gossip Novels
• · · Who actually painted Mao's official portrait? And why is it still up in the square, when many Chinese seem more eager to buy Gucci bags than Mao suits? Chameleon Mao, the Face of Tiananmen Square ; When Chuck Norris joined the National Guard, he wasn't expecting to end up in one of the worst corners of the Sunni Triangle. Now he's home in Pennsylvania, with his fellow guardsmen and memories he just can't shake. Bringing It All Back Home ; Molecular Psychiatry Differences in Sexual Desire Can Be Attributed to Genetic Variances
• · · · How two philosophers and a farmer cracked an age-old conundrum: It was the egg that came first, not the chicken, according to a study of the poultry pecking order. Ultimate conundrum of the poultry world ; An article on a spate of books that have collectively been dubbed "lad lit", the male riposte to "chick lit". What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though Guy Lit — Whatever
• · · · · Y. Euny Hong’s blueblood forebears used to dine with kings.... now they are waiters Ancestor worship ; Heaven for Germans is filled with orderly rows of binders - Collecting and storing certificates documenting every aspect of life is a national pastime. The German Certificate Fetish
• · · · · · Germans have a staring problem. Either the grandma on the first floor is watching your every move or the guy across from you in the subway can't turn away. Watcha Lookin' at, Granny? ; The World Cup 2006: Reflections, predictions and hopes I grew up in East Berlin. After reunification, I no longer had a team. Now, once again, I do