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Tag Archives: Americans

Late stylishness

The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings By Geoff Dyer (Audiobook read by Richard Burnip, 11h 29m, Canongate Books, £21.87) . It’s late June, Wimbledon’s upon us, and Geoff Dyer is talking about his tennis injuries. Geoff Dyer is always talking about his tennis injuries. It’s one of his endearing features. But when […]

On Uncertain Ground

In which I, ASH Smyth, High Anglican atheist, descendant of Huguenots, dissenters, Presbyterians, Church of Ireland types, and maybe even Quakers, make my Catholic press debut, on Phil Klay’s Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. — For The Catholic Herald

News At A Glance #3

More or less news more-or-less concerning Lord Salisbury, Quakers, and Chaldaean numerology. — For The Emigre

A season in ‘Hell’

Review of Jonathan C Slaght’s compelling Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl. — For Geographical

The One That Got Away – Deshan Tennekoon

The Sri Lankan author, Fulbright scholar and photographer talks about the greatest shot he never got… and one he did. TRIGGER WARNING: includes bird-poo references. — For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. During one year a high police official in New York was offered £120,000 in bribes to “look the other way.” — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, June 22 1909 . The night is chilly to a man without clothes. You get a free tote bag if you subscribe to almost anything. Sussex folk have few superstitions. There […]

Ducks and cover

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann Galley Beggar Press, £14.99, pp1020 . Why, I asked some months back, in these pages, do the protagonists in American fiction these days seem so lost? What is it they’re all so het up about? Well… everything. At least according to the narrator of Ducks, Newburyport. Lucy Ellmann’s monster novel […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. Though fair-haired people are not so strong as those with dark hair, they usually live longer. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Wednesday, July 15 1908 . The comedian Joe Pasquale (born Joseph Ellis Pasquale) has not died. The US government spends more per head on their dysfunctional healthcare system than the UK spends per person on […]

All good things must come to an end

Some Trick: thirteen stories by Helen DeWitt New Directions, £22.95, pp.197 Certain American States by Catherine Lacey Granta, £12.99, pp.190 Hostages by Oisín Fagan Head of Zeus, £8.99, pp.269 Notes from the Fog by Ben Marcus Granta, £12.99, pp.266 The Abyss and Other Stories by Leonid Andreyev Alma Books, £8.99, pp.315 . Only Helen DeWitt […]

‘5 Living Presidents’? ASH Smyth demands a recount

A list of all the living presidents, as at 5:57pm, December 1st, 2018 – for reasons that, I think, should be self-evident. — For Queen Mob’s Tea House