http://www.my-best-books.co.uk Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:05:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A famous singer arrives at the studio of Lovis Corinth to sit for a portrait in this specially commissioned storyRain on Klopstockstrasse. Light held in misty nets of water above the grey gleaming pavements. And then later the sound of it steadily falling through the darkness outside. Max's cousin comes: ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/portraits-by-rachel-cusk-2/ The figure who makes a great impact on others' lives without ever coming into view themselves is a potent device. Who is the best example in the novel?A conversation about non-speaking parts in The Archers this weekend led to a far longer, more involved discussion of fiction's great unseen ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/which-are-literatures-greatest-unseen-characters-2/ As this week's books podcast falls on the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year, we decided to devote it to the literature of war and remembrance. We talk to Michael Morpurgo, bestselling author of War Horse and Private Peaceful, about what the first first world war ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/the-pity-of-war/ A poem for Armistice DayChristmas Eve in the trenches of France,the guns were quiet.The dead lay still in No Man's Land –Freddie, Franz, Friedrich, Frank . . .The moon, like a medal, hung in the clear, cold sky.Silver frost on barbed wire, strange tinsel,sparkled and winked.A boy from Stroud stared ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/the-christmas-truce-2/ As part of our series of specially commissioned short stories, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells of a girl growing up amid the corruption of contemporary LagosIfemelu grew up in the shadow of her mother's hair, the thick, long black-black hair that drank two containers of relaxer at the salon, took hours ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/miracle-by-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-2/ Don DeLillo's richly compressed short stories are the work of a true masterDon DeLillo makes some people's brains ache. They hurry to consign his novels – from Americana and Ratner's Star to the great Underworld – to curiously inappropriate categories, whether readymade ("postmodernism") or jerry-rigged for the purpose ("hysterical realism"). ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/the-angel-esmeralda-by-don-delillo-2/ As part of our specially commissioned series of short stories, Atwood tells the comic tale of a dog's very unexpected discoveryMolly Light returns, oh how simple faith is justified! I do count on it and anyway there is always hunger, even if it stayed as dark as holes, as coals, ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/underbrush-man-by-margaret-atwood-2/ You won't get away with tinkering with his plays for an adult audience – but some bracing liberties are being taken for kidsThe treatment of Shakespeare in Roland Emmerrich's current flick, Anonymous, has had many a critic reaching for his poniards. Some think the film cocks an audacious snook at ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/re-styling-shakespeare-for-children-2/ In the first of a series of exclusive short stories, William Trevor tells of a tutor and his young pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when they meet up again years laterMary Bella didn't remember when she woke up and then she did: he hadn't come. The train was ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/an-idyll-in-winter-by-william-trevor-2/ Nearly 70 years after it ended, the second world war is still throwing up books inspired by the conflictThis week's Remembrance Day is almost superfluous. British writers and readers just can't stop fighting the second world war. It ended nearly 70 years ago, but it's as though the guns have ... http://www.my-best-books.co.uk/no-sign-of-a-ceasefire-in-the-endless-war-of-words-2/