Midnight Voices - Print Page


    
      
        Midnight Voices
        (https://www.peteatkin.com/cgi-bin/mv/YaBB.cgi)
      

        Not Pete Atkin >> Off-topic >> Novelist Susan Hill's current reading.
        
(Message started by: Kevin Cryan on Today at 07:46)

Title: Novelist Susan Hill's current reading.
Post by Kevin Cryan on Today at 07:46

I notice that the novelist Susan Hill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Hill) is at present reading (http://blog.susan-hill.com/blog/_archives/2007/6/25/3046938.html) Clive's North Face of Soho (http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=5661471) because "his memoirs have got to a period I remember well".

I think that she may well be reading it because she is trying to find out what she missed out on by residing outside London when she was a rising star in the literary world.

Kevin Cryan

Title: Re: Novelist Susan Hill's current reading.
Post by Kevin Cryan on 28.06.07 at 09:35

This is Sameer Rahim (http://www.lrb.co.uk/contribhome.php?get=rahi01) presumptuous potted review of the paperback edition of North Face of Soho (http://www.amazon.co.uk/North-Face-Soho-Unreliable-Memoirs/dp/0330481274) in today's today's edition (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/06/28/bopb.xml) of The Daily Telegraph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Telegraph).

"North Face of Soho by Clive James

The fourth volume of Clive James's Unreliable Memoirs follows his ascent into the literary and media world. With no job and a family to feed, he offered himself to every editor and producer around. Soon he had a weekly television column in the Observer and was appearing regularly on the medium himself.

Few writers could relate anecdotes about both Martin Amis and Peter Sellers, and the writing here is extremely stylish. But it is not only James's self-confessed "brashness" that starts to grate: it is also that his glitzy London life comes at the expense of his family in Cambridge.SR"

Kevin Cryan

Title: Re: Novelist Susan Hill's current reading.
Post by Mike Walters on 28.06.07 at 09:43

Don't think anyone's mentioned that there was an interesting review of 'North Face of Soho' by Nicholas Lezard in his 'Paperback of the Week' column in The Guardian a couple of weeks back. Still available on line at http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2103953,00.html

There's also a short but largely positive review of 'Cultural Amnesia' in the current edition of The Word magazine. Not available on-line as far as I can see.

Mike