A melancholy talent with a genius for send-up – Flann O’Brien was his own worst enemy
It is tempting to compare two highly intelligent, learned and gifted young Dublin writers, suffering under the burdensome, Oedipal influence…
From Don Quixote to My Struggle — a survey of the novel in 160 pages
I wonder what your idea of a good novel is. Does it embody the attributes of solid plotting, characterisation and…
How one man took on the French betting system — and kept winning against the odds
About a third of the way through this book I worked out that I had an unbeatable system for winning…
Risking all for the perfect mocha coffee
‘This guy’s crazy,’ says a taxi driver, listening to a BBC interview with a man who has decided to become…
A bad taste in the mouth
Here is the opening sentence of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s meditation on beds.: With its four legs and its flat, soft…
The very Czech (and very funny) brilliance of Bohumil Hrabal
‘A crane fell on top of me in Kladno in 1952, after which my writing got better,’ Bohumil Hrabal (who…
The smoking diary of Gregor Hens
The link between smoking and self-expression is long-established. The only thing worse than not being able to smoke, says Will…
A crime novel so incompetent it might have been written by a child
First, a quote from the novel under review. The context: it is a flashback scene of the behaviour of a…
What Hanif Kureishi learned from being robbed by his accountant
Have you ever met a sane accountant? I ask, because one of the more striking sentences in A Theft runs:…
