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The nine lives of Cats: how poetry became a musical, then a film … [16 Dec 2019|07:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/16/nine-lives-ts-eliot-book-practical-cats-andrew-lloyd-webber-taylor-swift Published as war broke out in 1939, TS Eliot’s Book of Practical Cats outsold The Waste Land. The 1980s saw a West End smash. Will the new film speak to us today? When Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats appeared in the first week of October 1939, it might have been thought that its author had lost the plot. It was only 17 years since TS Eliot had published The Waste Land, his cryptic lament for the moral and psychic disintegration that both caused and followed the first world war. Now, a mere month into renewed hostilities in Europe, here was Eliot, the man with more claim to cultural authority than almost anyone living, wasting his time (not to mention everyone else’s) with light verse about cats. Continue reading... post comment

Professional confessionals: why are memoirs about work topping the charts? [16 Dec 2019|08:58am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/16/lifes-work-professionals-memoirs-alex-clark From Adam Kay’s tales from the NHS to the Secret Barrister’s inside view of the justice system, readers are still gripped by what goes on in elite jobs In recent weeks, former medic Adam Kay has topped both hardback and paperback charts, having followed his memoir of life as a junior doctor, This Is Going to Hurt, with a seasonal offering, Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas, in which he revisits the trials of working in a hospital during the festive period (delivering a baby as Johnny Mathis played, drunk drivers and a boy who’d shoved a bit of his mum’s novelty flashing earring up his nose). Kay, who has adapted his work into a stage show in such demand that he’s still adding dates to this year’s tour, is also busy turning it into an eight-part series for BBC Two. Only a few slots down the paperback listings comes The Secret Barrister, an insider’s look at the failings of the criminal justice system, which started life as an award-winning blog, became a chart-topping book and has now spawned a sequel, Fake Law: The Truth About Justice in an Age of Lies, which will appear in the spring. Continue reading... post comment

Poem of the week: The Corn-Stalk Fiddle by Paul Laurence Dunbar [16 Dec 2019|11:04am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/16/poem-of-the-week-the-corn-stalk-fiddle-by-paul-laurence-dunbar From one of the great black American poets, this harvest song combines formal and vernacular language to potent effect The Corn-Stalk Fiddle When the corn’s all cut and the bright stalks shine Like the burnished spears of a field of gold; When the field-mice rich on the nubbins dine, And the frost comes white and the wind blows cold; Then its heigho fellows and hi-diddle-diddle, For the time is ripe for the corn-stalk fiddle. Continue reading... post comment

'Real ones know!' Stormzy namechecks Malorie Blackman and Jacqueline Wilson [16 Dec 2019|11:57am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/16/stormzy-namechecks-children-laureates-malorie-blackman The rapper’s song Superheroes tips hat to the Noughts and Crosses author and quotes from the theme tune to Tracy Beaker Stormzy’s references to Jacqueline Wilson and Malorie Blackman in his new song Superheroes have been embraced by both authors. The two former children’s laureates are both highlighted in the grime star’s song, which features on his new album, Heavy Is the Head: “Serena or Venus, the way I serve it, / I’m Malorie Blackman the way I sell books,” he raps, while as the track ends, he sings the lines from the theme tune to the TV version of Wilson’s Tracy Beaker, originally written and performed by Keisha White: “Doesn’t matter what will come my way / Believe me now, I will win some day.” Continue reading... post comment

Tips, links and suggestions: what are you reading this week? [16 Dec 2019|12:01pm] https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2019/dec/16/tips-links-and-suggestions-what-are-you-reading-this-week Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them Are you on Instagram? Then you can be featured here by tagging your books-related posts with #GuardianBooks Scroll down for our favourite literary links Read more Tips, links and suggestions blogs Welcome to this week’s blogpost. Here’s our roundup of your comments and photos from last week. Ah yes, last week. The recent unfortunateness, along with reading Clear Waters Rising, by Nicholas Crane has prompted a good question from tiojo: Continue reading... post comment

George RR Martin opens bookshop next to his cinema in Santa Fe [16 Dec 2019|02:35pm] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/16/george-rr-martin-opens-bookshop-santa-fe-beastly-books-game-of-thrones Beastly Books is adjacent to the Jean Cocteau picturehouse and promises to stock signed copies of the Game of Thrones author’s books George RR Martin has opened a bookshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico – although it isn’t, as yet, stocking his long-awaited novel The Winds of Winter. The Song of Ice and Fire novelist, who acquired the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe in 2013, has now opened the Beastly Books store next door. The shop is named in honour of what Martin said was Cocteau’s most famous film, Beauty and the Beast, as well as “a certain TV show I worked on in the 80s” with the same name. Continue reading... post comment

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