
IN THE MINDS OF MEN?
Some people really like the transporting nature of experimental prose or spare autofiction, but when I want to fully peace out of reality, I like being dropped into another life entirely, one that feels as rich and detailed as possible. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides was a comforting reread lately, because the scenes have the quality of life. Anywhere But Here by Mona Simpson is comforting for the same reason, a fictional world that is so tightly woven that it blots out the actual world.

CAPOTE: IN COLD BLOOD
Capote´s distinctive, high-pitched voice and odd vocal mannerisms were bought to life in Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar-winning portrayal of him in the 2005 movie, Capote.

WRITERS WRITE TO RIGHT WRONGS
McCormick died in 2015, a poor, unhappy man unable to let go of his Johnson manuscript or the “Monster.” Now that the book and the field recordings have been released, we know more about Johnson and Texas blues, but we are still left with burning questions. The biggest question of all is what might have happened if Johnson’s life had not been cut so short and he had lived to become a crucial figure in the tumultuous changes in American music during the 1940s and ’50s. In a forthcoming Curmudgeon Column, we will try to provide an answer.

WELL OF SOULS
So vividly does [Kristina Gaddy] write, and so enthusiastically does she convey her meaning, that many of the songs play unbidden in your mind, through the rhythm of her sentences, the lyric of her vocabulary. As much as Well Of Souls is a gripping, fascinating, story, it is also a beautifully written one...a novel in documentary's clothing.
Dave Thompson - Goldmine

PATTI SMITH SPEAKS OF WRITING
´I have always loved books and decided very young I wanted to write them, but I wasn’t certain how to go about it until I read Little Women

TALKING TOLKIEN:
J.R.R. Tolkien died before he could ever fully realize the epic history in his head, and even his son, labouring until the end of his own days, leaves us with a mythos that will never be complete.

MAJOR VOICE SPEAKS OF MAJOR LABELS
"Kelefa Sanneh has achieved the impossible. Major Labels somehow manages to unspool everything you need to know about 50 years of music, but more impressively, he makes you care about all of it. Even the stuff you don't care about. It's funny, it's personal and as a piece of writing, the book borders on poetry." --David Letterman (left)

UNDER MILK WOOD began Norman Warwick´s love affair with words
In 1988, George Martin produced an album version, featuring more of the dialogue sung, with music by Martin and Elton John, among others; Anthony Hopkins played the part of "First Voice".

LOOKING TO GET LOST?
"You put the book down feeling that its sweep is vast, that you have read of giants who walked among us,"

´GUILTY NARRATORS´ PARDONED ?
when a gifted artist allows the guilty narrator to sabotage his own message and allows us to see the dangerous tendencies in every human being, the virus becomes a vaccine that protects us all, suggests Geoffrey Himes
