Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Horacio Quiroga / The Son
Book Reviews / Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead
BOOK REVIEWS
Astonish Me
Maggie Shipstead
Review by Stephenie Harrison
BookPage Fiction Top Pick, April 2014
The title of Maggie Shipstead’s second novel, Astonish Me, is a fitting one indeed. It’s a request, a demand, a dare, all wrapped up in two little words, heavy with promise. And like the prima ballerina at the heart of the novel itself, Shipstead delivers a glorious story that does exactly what it says it will.
Superficially, Astonish Me is about the world of professional ballet: It is the story of Joan, a woman whose life is first shaped by her love of dance, and then by her love for an extraordinary Russian dancer (and defector). We follow Joan back and forth through time, from girl to grown woman, watching as passion propels her forward, heedless of the consequences and pain that are the ultimate fallout from such explosive affaires de coeur. As Joan’s pirouettes slowly morph into downward spirals both on and off the stage, the novel becomes a deeply thoughtful meditation on the relentless pursuit of perfection and just how far we’re willing to go for love.
Astonish Me is an awful lot of fun to read—the plot moves at a quick clip and is deeply engrossing—but it has a satisfying weight and delicious darkness that undercuts the sudsier elements. Shipstead’s writing isn’t showy, but dazzles nonetheless with vivid imagery and startling turns of phrase. Given that her last novel, Seating Arrangements, won the Dylan Thomas prize, there is a lot riding on this follow-up; far from a sophomore slump, this novel proves that Shipstead’s star is still on the rise as she pushes herself to exhilarating new heights. For those who might dismiss the book as “chick lit” masquerading as serious fiction, rest assured that Astonish Me is as nuanced and delightful as any reader could ever hope for a book to be.
ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Maggie Shipstead for Astonish Me.
BOOKPAGETuesday, April 29, 2014
Horacio Quiroga / The Feather Pillow
By Horacio Quiroga
Monday, April 28, 2014
The 100 best novels / No 32 / Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899)
The 100 best novels
written in English
No. 32
Joseph Conrad's masterpiece about a life-changing journey in search of Mr Kurtz has the simplicity of great myth
Monday 28 April 2014 07.00 BST
Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now, inspired by Heart of Darkness. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive |
A note on the text
Three more from Joseph Conrad
THE 100 BEST NOVELS WRITTEN IN ENGLISH
036 The Golden Bowl by Henry James (1904)
040 Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (1915)
041 The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)
042 The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915)
043 The Rainbow by DH Lawrence (1915)
044 Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Waugham (1915)
045 The Age of Innocence by Edith Warthon (1920)
046 Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)
047 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis (1922)
048 A Pasage to India by EM Forster (1922)
049 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loss ( 1925)
050 Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)
051 The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
070 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)
085 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1966)
095 The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald (1988)
Horacio Quiroga / The Decapitated Chicken
Horacio Quiroga / The Decapited Chicken and Other Stories / Review
Horacio Quiroga |
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Friday, April 25, 2014
García Márquez / Five must reads
The Autumn of the Patriarch 1975
Love in the Time of Cholera 1985
The General in his Labyrinth 1989
News of a Kidnpapping 1996
Latin America reacts to death of literary colossus Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez tributes celebrate life and work of literary giant
Gabriel García Márquez tributes celebrate life and work of literary giant
- Hannah Ellis-Petersen
- The Guardian,
My hero / William Shakespeare by Susan Cooper
William Shakespeare |
My hero: William Shakespeare by Susan Cooper
Shakespeare was one of those astounding happy accidents that redeem our imperfect race
Susan Cooper
2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm
2010
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey
022 My hero / John Keats by Helen Dunmore
023 My hero / Edith Wharton by Lionel Shriver
024 My hero / Elizabeth Barrett Browing by Sara Paretsky
025 My hero / Nelson Mandela by Gordon Brown
026 My hero / Billy Wilder by David Nicholls
027 My hero / Samuel Beckett by Nick Clegg
028 My hero / Margaret Atwood by Caroline Lucas
029 My hero / Colette by Helen Simpson
030 My hero / Cyd Charisse by Tony Parsons
031 My hero / Nicolai Medtner by Philip Pullman
032 My hero / Jean Genet by Ahdaf Soueif
033 My hero / Jeri Johnson by Kate Moss
034 My hero / John Maynard Keynes by Joan Bakewell
035 My hero / Patti Smith by Joseph O'Connor
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner
041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson
051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal
2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill
2012
146 My hero / Roald Dahl by Michael Rosen
156 My hero / Barack Obama by Lorrie Moore
176 My hero / Mae West by Kathy Lette
181 My hero / Lydia Davis by Ali Smith
184 My hero / Louise Bourgeois by Tracey Emin
185 My hero / Albert Camus by David Constantine
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer
2015
280 My hero / George Weindelfel by Antonia Fraser
281 My hero / Dmitri Shostakovich by Julian Barnes
282 My hero / Charlotte Brontë by Tracy Chevalier
283 My hero / Margaret Foster by Valerie Grove
284 My hero / David Cesarini by David Herman
285 My hero / Umberto Eco by Jonathan Coe