Now we are sixty

The air is decidedly cool as we head on in our Russian pilgrimage. Looking back, it was most certainly warmer and more cheerful back on Park Lane for Vile
Bodies. The next list is almost ready. Watch this space/your inbox. As I updated the spreadsheet, I was surprised at how big it has become. Long gone are the days when the excel sheet should show all the titles in one screen. Now there are a couple I didn't quite manage to fit in: Rabbit, Run, because I ran out of time; and most recently The Seagull which I've just ordered now – my highland fling got in the way of this.

But Scotch missed aside, let's pretend I did read these three titles. Goodness, that's sixty titles. Some might be short stories, or collections of verse, or novellas, but let's not be pedantic: it's rather special that we should have kept going. In less than three years we've read more titles than many might read in a lifetime – even if you missed a couple. It might fail at our next meeting (which makes me sound rather like Mme Verdurin): it could have been our last meeting. And even if it were, we've had a jolly good run. Yet somehow I suspect that we have rather a long way to go yet: the faithful will not fail us now.

The Editions! - Vile Bodies

The wonderful editions from the 6th October session

Thank you to Kate and Lucie for the photos.

The Comic Novel

As the last couple of novels we have read have been more on the comic side, I thought I would post this Guardian article on the comic novel.

Howard Jacobson on Taking Comic Novels Seriously

Write Stuff on R4

Tomorrow night at 18:30 on Radio 4, The Write Stuff returns, and features P. G. Wodehouse and how he might have tackled historical fiction, as the topic for this light-hearted quiz. I daresay on i-player afterwards. Later in series, the non-furry Marcel gets his own programme.

A television for a stage

The WRG hasn't done a Shakespeare yet. When we do, it might well be Measure for Measure, a real favourite of mine. Little wonder, you might groan, given it's about the common good and urban governance. But if we didn't do Measure, then Henry V would be a pretty good bet. The BBC seems to think so too, with the 'first adaptation for 30 years'. The implicit statement in the Guardian piece here is that this should be a more frequent occurrence: how often, exactly? http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/29/bbc-henry-v-william-shakespeare. Graundidad silliness aside, we'll see in 2012 when this new one is screened. Heretic I know, but I've always rated the Branagh more highly than Olivier.

Recent Piece on Dostoevsky in the Guardian

"Has any author's reputation fallen further or faster than Dostoevsky's?

Few writers' esteem can have been demolished as quickly as the Russian master's fall from critical grace in 1846"

A blog in the Guardian book section on an upcoming WRG author

The Editions!

WRG - 22nd September 2010

PG Wodehouse Thank You, Jeeves

Thank you to Lucie for the photos!