Must-reads from the world's book pages.
Anzac Day is as big a deal in the Australian (and indeed the Australian) book pages as it is in ours: witness this and this.
The Observer has Martin Amis reviewing Christopher Hitchens - the sort of review where it’s “Christopher” not “Hitchens”, but entirely forgiveable, and essential reading, in this case.
In sister paper the Guardian, there is an interview with John Berger, a wonderful array of poets’ alternatives to wedding vows (ahead of … well, you know what ahead of) and a review of this delicious-sounding piece of academic malice aforethought.
Thomas Powers reviews Mark Twain’s “autobiography” in the London Review of Books.
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Director’s Cut (sort of).
And a tribute to the great thriller writer John Buchan.
As locations go to interview David Lodge about his new HG Wells novel, you can’t really improve upon Wells’s own house.
Jonathan Raban’s belated addition to the David Foster Wallace fest is in the New York Review of Books.
One for your children: an interview with Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney.
Possibly not one for your children (unless they are given to reading the Times Literary Supplement): Tim Parks on the perils of translation and “internationalism”. (An essay of interest to Granta. And while we’re at it.)
I’ve resisted and I’ve resisted but I can only resist Liz Lemon so long, so this week succumb. Although this review might give me pause. (Meanwhile, for any Jack Donaghy fans who haven’t already heard it …)
I can only resist Sam Seaborn so long, too, but am not so much of a fanboy as to think Sam Seaborn has that much in common with Rob Lowe.
The consolations of philosophy etc.
And finally, the consolations of the New Yorker. Which reader of that magazine couldn’t identify with this: a New Yorker book group, where the New Yorker itself is the “book” under discussion. You need never read a book book again.