Reader

Clive me a break, Aug 2 2009

I open this tasty looking collection with great anticipation. On the first page of Peter Straub's introduction I find a quotation mark that is never closed - most distracting - another (obviously nothing to do with the first) that is back to front, and - also on this first page - a reference to "Give Barker". I have no doubt that Peter Straub, a great scholar of the strange tale, originally wrote "Clive Barker". Does the once distinguished house of Faber no longer employ copy editors or proof readers? I am for the moment too scared to continue reading. But not for the intended reasons.

A book all Scientologists will enjoy, April 24 2009

I would welcome an unbiased survey of the Church of Scientology, and might expect one from such a venerable publisher, but alas this book is not it. The editor, James R. Lewis, is a long-time apologist for organisations others might describe as cults, including The Children of God - in his book of 1994, "Sex, Slander and Salvation" - and Japan's Aum Supreme Truth. Among the eyebrow-raising assertions in "Scientology" are that "the basic outline of L. Ron Hubbard's life is not contested" - certainly not the view of Hubbard's most reliable biographer, Russell Miller - and (in an essay written by a lecturer in tourism management at Griffith University, Queensland Australia) that firefighters… Read more

Deliriously good, Jan 14 2009

This was my first taste of Goodis and I am already seeking more. He has the reputation of being a chronicler of despair, and there is certainly a lot of low life - of the upper-middle class alcoholic variety and the underclass Jamaican one, to name but two - on display in this book. But one surprise of his book is that it has a happy ending. Blood-soaked and corpse-strewn, perhaps, but happy and hopeful. Also, this short novel is terrifically plotted (another surprise: I had the impression plot wasn't of great interest to Goodis) and full of genuine thrills. The overdone and not quite accurate Jamaican patois of the dialogue is a minus, and may explain why this book has gone unrevived… Read more