Joe Sacco’s latest book, Footnotes in Gaza, is attracting some very positive reviews, none more so than this one by Patrick Cockburn in the New York Times.
Sacco pioneered comic art as journalism in his book Palestine and then continued to develop the genre in his books on Sarajevo.
It’s that time of year when newspapers and magazines the world over publish their best of lists. So the Scoop Review of Books has decided to end the year with a best of the best of books list for 2009.
The New York Times isn’t satisfied with just one best books list, it has: the 10 best books of 2009;100 notable books;, Best illustrated children’s books; Best graphic novels, and a host of other categories.
For those with plenty of time on their hands or planning out their retirement reading the Guardian helpfully compiled a list of the 1000 Best Novels. And equally ambitious is its Books that Defined the Noughties. And then there’s the best food books of the decade.
By Scott Hamilton
The English novelist Martin Amis once said that his career wouldn’t really start until he died. Like many others in his line of work, Amis believes that a writer’s real achievement is only tested posthumously, by critics and scholars immune to the temporary fashions and prejudices that can make and break an author in his or her lifetime. The recent death of John Updike has given Amis the chance to write an essay for the New York Review of Books assessing the massive body of work produced by one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful of all American authors.
:JR
Nicky Hager’s The Hollow Men inspired both a stage play and a documentary but up until now his first, and in journalistic terms far more impressive work, Secret and Lies has failed to inspire a fictionalised account. The Echelon Conspiracy starring, among others Martin Sheen and Shane West, if not strictly based on Nicky’s book at least cites his work on the Echelon spy network on its official website.
If the trailer’s anything to go by The Echelon Conspiracy is run-of-the-mill Hollywood crap – but if it sparks interest in Secret and Lies and the Echelon spy network Nicky played a key role in exposing it can’t be all bad.
The filmmakers may link to this article by Nicky, but the first he heard of the film was when the Scoop Review of Books sent him a link to the trailer.
By Scott Hamilton
At this time of year, my social life is dictated by a desire to spend as much time as possible in air-conditioned rooms. It’s fair to say, then, that my plan to attend the poetry reading at Grey Lynn Library on Thursday February the 19th isn’t motivated by exclusively literary considerations. But with Jack Ross, Therese Lloyd, Michael Steven, and Lee Posna on the bill, I’ll be enjoying some excellent poetry that evening, as well as the cool hum of air conditioning. Read more »
Comedians John Bird and John Fortune background the financial crisis. Read more »
Based on the reading habits of Amazon shoppers, John McCain has the presidential election in the bag. The giant on-line retailer is tracking the book buying habits of Americans across the country and so far the only States where books it classifies as blue (as in sympathetic to the Democratic Party – not Tory blue) are ahead of those it classifies as red, are: New York (56%), Vermont (59%), Massachusetts (58%), Maine (53%), and, although not a State, the District of Columbia (65%). Read more »
There’s a growing clamour on the Internet for Sam Hunt to be named the next New Zealand Poet Laureate. Well, if not a clamour a chorus of two; former Listener staff writer Denis Welch took time out from writing his unauthorised biography of Helen Clark to float the idea, and Bookman Beattie suggested the same thing on his blog. The Scoop Review of Books is happy to add the full weight of its not inconsiderable prestige to the call;-). Read more »
In this week’s SRB Picks’: Ecuador proposes giving legal rights to Nature; Scott Ritter claims the US is already responsible for murderous attacks on Iran; Randy Newman – of Short People fame – on his new album; George Pelecanos on growing up Greek and homicides; an edgy new graphic novel, and; why is every progressive and his dog now calling for a New Deal? Read more »
Condoleezza Rice may not have launched a thousand ships, but she has had an oil tanker named after her and helped launch a war or two. But is the US Secretary of State, who is visiting New Zealand this weekend, a war criminal as claimed by the Auckland University Students’ Association? Read more »
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