My charity shop book buys yesterday included two by Michel Faber, an author who had somehow passed beneath my radar until recently.
I've subsequently seen interesting reviews of his 'Victorian' novel, The Crimson Petal and the White, so I am looking forward to reading it in the future. I also bought his first anthology of short stories, Some Rain Must Fall and made a start on some of the stories while Son 2 was in music therapy this morning. The tales seem to be very varied in subject and style and some, although beautifully written, are not perhaps what I would normally read, give that I am not a devotee of science fiction or fantasy. I thought, however, that the title story, which opens the collection, was devastatingly good. You can read it here.
Other stories by Michel Faber which can be found online include The Safehouse, shortlisted for the National Short Story Prize 2006 and Fish, which is also in the volume I am reading.
3 comments:
I think I mentioned ages ago that I was reading " Digging to America" ( Anne Tyler)
I've now finisghed and can SO recommend it.
It's a wonderful painting of families ( relationships, love, affection, anxieties, problems, inlaws, outlaws, celebrations, the whole caboodle...)
It's also a superb social/cultural commentary.
I've just been reading a bit of blog catching up, Cathy, and was interested in your nurture/nature discussion. Coincidentally, I was going to write today about the bits of myself which I see in my granddaughters. It's a subject I find very interesting. When I did the Social Science Foundation Course with OU, I declared at one point that there could be no doubt that that it must be about half and half. My tutor, who was excellent in most respects, looked at me quite disapprovingly and said, 'What makes you think that?' I knew he disagreed and thought that the way children behaved was all as a result of nurture and that what I was saying was not PC. Nevertheless my feeling was that just as a child might be well built because he ate well, there would be a genetic factor allowing him to grow to a particular size in addition, so this would apply in behavioural and personality terms as well. Now my children are adults I remain convinced of that.
Jan...I've just bought the Anne Tyler and added it to my unread book mountain...
Jackie...I think I would agree with your theory of nature and nurture being equally important.Of course OU tutors can't always be right!
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