What has come to be known as weird fiction is commonly interpreted as an escape from reality. Writers such as HP Lovecraft, Arthur Machen and Walter de la Mare evoked a world of dreams in order to relieve the sense of oppression that comes with a life ruled by physical laws and social conventions. Obeying an impulse similar to that which animated the Gothic and Romantic writers of an earlier era, they fashioned a make-believe world as a refuge from the emptiness they found in modern life. It is at best an over-simple interpretation of many writers working in this genre. Nowhere is this more so than in the case of Robert Aickman, until recently a lesser-known figure but surely one of weird fiction’s most remarkable practitioners. What Aickman called his “strange stories” tell of landscapes morphing into new shapes, while time is twisted or suspended. Yet readers are not left with the impression of an unreal world that fades away when the book is … [Read more...] about ConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlight Why Robert Aickman is the master of “weird fiction”
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For the love of books: Mobile libraries around the world
Buses in Lagos, shipping containers in the Netherlands and even a couple of Colombian donkeys are enjoying a new lease of life as bookmobiles, spreading knowledge in their communities. Travelling from place to place, mobile libraries around the world aim to bring the benefits of reading to those without access to books. The idea has been around since as early as the 19th century but - despite the availability of ebooks and increasingly widespread internet access - mobile libraries, also known as bookmobiles, have not disappeared. Instead, they are adapting to meet the needs of their communities by providing not only books but workshops and training or simply a human connection for people living in remote areas. To mark World Book Day on April 23, Al Jazeera speaks to the people behind the mobile libraries putting books in the hands of communities in Syria, Colombia, Nigeria and the Netherlands. Bringing books to kids: iRead Mobile Library, Nigeria … [Read more...] about For the love of books: Mobile libraries around the world
ConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightA look at the long prime of novelist Muriel Spark on the centenary of her birthDictator’s playground: inside Viktor Orbán’s Hungary
Martin Amis, displaying his customary terror of the first person singular, once described Graham Greene as the first serious writer “you came across”, the one “we happened to read” before “we read anybody else”. Greene, Amis wrote – stepping marginally closer to confessional territory – had served as “an awakener”, and what he awakened was a taste for Literature, a property that his writing embodied in a pleasing, plotty form. Assuming this role for later generations looks an immeasurably taller order. Greene, by cross-breeding the novel in its earnest and ethical mode with the devices of the thriller and the yarn, helped to create an appetite for the Catholic tradition as well as for godless existentialism, and for such heroic forebears as Conrad, James, and Dostoevsky. But who could prepare the budding reader in the 1980s or 1990s or today for such multifarious challenges as, say, the po-faced nouveau roman, the … [Read more...] about ConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightA look at the long prime of novelist Muriel Spark on the centenary of her birthDictator’s playground: inside Viktor Orbán’s Hungary
‘The blandness of today’s pop lyrics should be banned’: 10 Questions for Sparks star Russell Mael
Register for our free newsletter RUSSELL and his brother Ron formed the band Sparks in LA in 1972 and had global hits with This Town Ain’t Big Enough and Amateur Hour, among others. They played BBC Radio 6 Music’s festival last year, their new musical, Annette, has excited Hollywood with Rihanna at one point scheduled to star, and they’ve announced a UK tour taking in Glasgow’s O2 Academy on May 22. How do you describe Sparks’ music? Always unexpected. Music with an eccentric twist. Ron comes up with the “out there” lyrics, but I’ve never said to him “you’ve gone too far.” The blandness of today’s pop lyrics should be banned. How was the 6 Music festival in Glasgow last year? Incredible, but daunting. We worried how our new songs would go down as it was the first time we’d played the new album. Did the album, Hippopotamus, live up to your hopes? Best reviews of our career, and it made lots of Record Of … [Read more...] about ‘The blandness of today’s pop lyrics should be banned’: 10 Questions for Sparks star Russell Mael
Tributes pour in for science fiction writer Ursula K Le Guin who dies aged 88
Ursula K Le Guin, whose books fused science fiction, fantasy with a feminist sensibility, has died at her home in Oregon aged 88. She was a best-selling author renowned for works such as her Earthsea series aimed at young adults. She also achieved considerable critical success with her novel the Left Hand of Darkness published in 1969, which is set on a planet where everyone is ambisexual. Her books could delve into sorcery, dragons and spaceships and were translated into more than 40 languages, as well as selling millions worldwide. The New York Times noted the comment once made by the critic Harold Bloom, who described her as someone who "raised fantasy into high literature for our time". Her more than 20 novels and more than 100 works of short fiction won numerous Locus, Hugo, and Nebula awards. Authors who say she influenced them include Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and George R. R. Martin. She was also a social commentator with issues such as social inequality and the foibles … [Read more...] about Tributes pour in for science fiction writer Ursula K Le Guin who dies aged 88