PennSound

PennSound is a Web-based archive for noncommercial distribution of the largest collection of poetry sound files on the Internet. For those who like to listen to poetry in the poet's voice.

The Coast of Akron

Adrienne Miller's debut novel tells the story of the Haven clan, an idiosyncratic family unit. Artist Lowell Haven is the central character from which the other family members radiate like spokes. He is an egocentric, lying philanderer. But Lowell is the one member of the family who has no narrative voice. Ex-wife Jenny is revealed through her diary which tells us everything we need to know about the origin of the marital relationship in swinging London in the 70's. The story of Merit, their daughter, is told in the third person and we learn of her unorthodox childhood and her marriage to a much older man, Wyatt, who seems completely absorbed with home repairs - innovative switchless light fixtures and such. Merit loves animals and her step-daughter Caroline. Merit also has affairs with losers. Merit is a nice person but a real flake. Fergus was once Jenny's high school friend and is now Lowell's lover. He is a bitchy, self-centred, wealthy guy with a self-image problem and a runny nose who delights in regaling us with all things Fergus. The central plot centres around the origin of Lowell Haven's self-portraits but we're let in on the "secret" early on. The denouement is over the top but Miller's wit and originality make it worth a read.

Lionel Shriver Podcast

Lionel Shriver on We Need To Talk About Kevin

Manly books - guaranteed to put hair on your chest.

100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library :we have narrowed down the top 100 books that have shaped the lives of individual men while also helping define broader cultural ideas of what it means to be a man.
Via

Get London Reading

"Get London Reading is a campaign by Booktrust to get Londoners reading books set in London. To promote the campaign, KentLyons have created a selection of installations around London, showing extracts from books in situ. The extracts appear on pavements, windows and rubbish, as though the words have fallen from a book."

Found at It's Nice That

Lloyd and Lenore

Two folks after my own heart:

Via
Nag on the Lake

Turntable + Blue Light: Erica Kaufman

Erica Kaufman:
grammatology for anthony robinson

i want sentences. to make sense.
in the post post post structuralist way.
want barbie to topple. the way she
should. want my hands to age.
the redness to be arthritis not
frostbite. want to use apostrophes
as commas because nothing.
is that possessive. i used to hoard
old sneakers. a kid with candy
in the closet. now i fill trash bags
with clothes that fit. i like this
showing. like you in all
your languages. body. bullets.
paragraphenalia. today i think.
waist. want. put on. my cargo
shorts and strut between
couch and computer. between
balance and overdrawn.
i feel like a checkbook
missing monthly interest.
i know it's there. acquired.
never met. i never thought
about barbells. about piercing
my nipples. the ringlets small.
i miss. i am miss. admit to singular.
can't conjugate smitten. alone.

Via Woods Lot

Train de Nulle Part

A 233-page French Novel Written Without Verbs

Louise Hay, queen of the new age

Louise Hay is one of the best selling authors in history, and none of the women who have sold more — like J. K. Rowling, Danielle Steel and Barbara Cartland — owned a publishing empire. They did not change the spiritual landscape of America and several of its Western allies. They were not pregnant at 15 and they did not lack high-school diplomas. more

Books and animals - two of my favourite things!

'I never left anybody. It was him that left me'

Michel Houellebecq, France's most shocking novelist, made his name with tales of dysfunctional, estranged relationships. Now his own mother, portrayed as a sex-obsessed hippy in one of his books, has launched a devastating counter-attack in a new memoir.

A Perfectly Good Family

I read We Need To Talk About Kevin a couple of years ago. It knocked the wind out of me. It was disturbing but compelling. I recently read Lionel Shriver's The Post-Birthday World looking for the intense connection I felt with the Kevin novel. Didn't find it there although the device of mirror novels was interesting. I picked up this novel once again hoping to rekindle the intensity of the earlier novel. As in all the Lionel Shriver novels I've read, the characters are flawed if not outright despicable. In this case three siblings gather at the family home in Raleigh after the deaths of both parents and the predictable feuding over the estate ensues. The characters are sharply- and I think over-drawn. There's a demonic older brother, a duplicitous middle sister and a gentle but boring younger brother. The intense sibling rivalry, though hyper-exaggerated, somehow rings true. Shriver has a sense of humour that supports the story and renders it a little less toxic than it might have been. Wondering how it would all shake out kept me reading and I wasn't disappointed. The ending reconciled all the ambivalence and sent a strong message (at least to me) that there is good in everyone - one just has to dig a bit to find it.

Being Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver Slideshow