Novel: Really enjoyed reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. A tightly written page-turner which mixes sci-fi and retrogaming. Free PDF of the first three chapters - http://d.pr/WqKO

(via BoingBoing)

On sentences:

"I remember reading a sentence by Joyce, in the short story “Araby.” It appears toward the beginning. “The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed.” I have never forgotten it. This seems to me as perfect as a sentence can be. It is measured, unguarded, direct and transcendent, all at once. It is full of movement, of imagery. It distills a precise mood. It radiates with meaning and yet its sensibility is discreet."

- Jhumpa Lahiri, "My Life's Sentences", NYT

Video: Kurt Vonnegut on the shapes of stories - http://youtu.be/oP3c1h8v2ZQ


(4m37s, via kottke.org)

For Gormenghast fans, Brian Sibley's new Radio 4 adaptation of the four books is on iPlayer for another fortnight - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012f7gz. This coincides with the Mervyn Peake centenary.

Been reading Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates. Crisp, modern writing from 1961 about suburbia in the US and about settling down. Of its time undoubtedly, and yet it fits the late twenties of today. I've just noticed Sam Mendes has directed a film adaptation, out at the end of this year.

Finished Coetzee's Disgrace recently. A sparse, vivid novel where a haphazard slice of things happen slow enough they can be hard to see. Ambitious scope, delivered in a measured way.

Finished reading Zadie Smith's On Beauty the other day. What Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty did for class in Britain in the 80s, On Beauty does for race in contemporary America. Like a flare briefly illuminating a whole landscape at once. Probably the people who are most going to enjoy On Beauty - humanities grad students - won't have time to read it for pleasure. It's none the less well-told, well-written and well-observed.