Tag: David Bowie

Review | The Rain Watcher, Tatiana de Rosnay | Book of the Week

“The flooding was not going to subside. Linden had turned off the TV. He had felt slightly nauseous. The Seine’s upwelling had upset him, but his parents’ state worried him all the more. The bad timing of their visit to Paris stupefied him. How could their family weekend have turned into such an ordeal?”

After a prolonged separation, the Malegarde family is set to celebrate the fortieth wedding anniversary of Paul and his wife Lauren, as well as his seventieth birthday. It is a shock for the elderly couple used to secluded rural life in the Drôme valley to arrive in a capital saturated by monsoon-like rain. Linden and Tilia, based in San Francisco and London respectively, join their parents in Chatterton Hotel in the 14th arrondissement. The family has not been reunited in such a way since they were teenagers.
 Continue reading Review | The Rain Watcher, Tatiana de Rosnay | Book of the Week

BookBlasts® | Top 10 Reads for Independent Minds | February 2018

Here are our latest top 10 reads from a selection of indie publishers every book lover should know.  A good read underpinned by an open mind can change your lifeview irrevocably. Palestine in Black and White by Mohammad Sabaaneh is one such book.

Listing in alphabetical order according to publisher @BalestierPress @Carcanet @DarfPublishers @DeadInkBooks @NightLightNate @dedalusbooks @BelgraviaB @SaqiBooks @UnicornPubGroup

The Past is a Foreign Country

Liv by Roger Pulvers (Balestier Press) buy here

A fifty-five year old Norwegian woman who works as a volunteer for refugees is heading home on a suburban train in Sydney, Australia, in 1975. Liv Grimstad is discomfited by the man sitting opposite her. He is elderly with liver spots on his hands yet he is horribly familiar. Continue reading BookBlasts® | Top 10 Reads for Independent Minds | February 2018

Spotlight | Beauty Victims at Le Palace | 3:AM Magazine 2005

An early article, Beauty Victims at Le Palace by Georgia de Chamberet for 3:am magazine (2005) from the BookBlast® Archive.

During a recent trip to Paris, I mentioned to various French publishers that in the UK, nostalgia for the underground  movements of the last thirty years is flourishing. Yet despite the outpouring of books, films, documentaries, compilation CDs and exhibitions like the Vivienne Westwood, it is obvious to me that one side of the London-New York-Paris “golden triangle” has been overlooked. Between artists there is always a cross-fertilisation of ideas, and the effect of the Parisian underground remains influential. Grace Jones learned devices for subversive performance during her time at Fabrice Emaer’s legendary club, Le Palace — the Studio 54 of its day — and Madonna was backup singer and dancer for disco star Patrick Hernandez when his hit “Born To Be Alive” went global.

I argued that people who enjoy reading, and relish the likes of Michael Bracewell, Ben Myers, Jeff Noon and Robert Elms should be given a chance to check out their French counterparts. But I was told by the French publishers that English publishers are not interested in a certain type of French culture, and translation is seen as a risky venture, so to pitch offbeat or outrageous books considered to have limited sales potential would be a waste of time. Bonjour tristesse. From idea to bookstore the reader comes last in a long line of corporate decision-makers, in a game of blind man’s bluff. Continue reading Spotlight | Beauty Victims at Le Palace | 3:AM Magazine 2005

%d bloggers like this: