Tag Archives: Comedy

Hay Festival: Man Booker International Prize and Jo Caulfield

This week, I am very excited to be at the Hay Festival in Wales attending various events, browsing lots of bookshops and maybe purchasing one or two books…

Man Booker and Jo Caulfield

The first event I attended on Sunday evening was the Man Booker International Prize winner László Krasznahorkai in conversation with Dame Marina Warner, the Chair of the Prize’s panel, on the Oxfam Moot stage. Since its launch in 2005, the Man Booker International Prize has been awarded every two years to any living author writing fiction in English or whose work is widely translated into English. Unlike its sister prize the Man Booker Prize, it is awarded in recognition of the author’s whole body of work rather than a particular novel.

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The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

The Rosie EffectDue to be published in the UK next week, ‘The Rosie Effect’ is the sequel to Graeme Simsion’s bestselling ‘The Rosie Project‘. Now married and living with Rosie in New York City, socially awkward genetics professor Don Tillman has successfully completed the Wife Project. However, just as Don is about to announce that Gene is coming to stay, Rosie announces that she is expecting a baby – the biggest possible disruption to Don’s ordered life. His careful research into pregnancy and fatherhood inevitably lands him into trouble very quickly. Continue reading

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Back Story by David Mitchell

I love David Mitchell.  Just to clarify, I am of course referring to the David Mitchell who stars in one of my favourite ever sitcoms, ‘Peep Show’, rather than the David Mitchell who wrote a really weird book called ‘Cloud Atlas‘ which I failed to finish earlier this year.  ‘Back Story’ is David (‘Peep Show’) Mitchell’s memoir about his peaceful middle-class childhood, his experiences with Footlights at Cambridge University and his route to fame as a critically acclaimed actor and comedian.  It definitely has nothing to do with ‘Cloud Atlas’ although Mitchell says he is frequently mistaken for the author of the bestselling book.

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