 |
|
|
|
OXFORD BOOKS NEWS, WRITERS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
Oxford Book NewsA Review of The How-to Media Law manual: A journalist's guide to solving legal problems safely.
A review of Writer's Market UK 2009
In next month's edition
An Interview with Prof. Richard Dawkins SUNDAY TIMES OXFORD LITERARY FESTIVAL
Oxford Prospect Editor with David Dawkins ( 4 April 2008) at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, in the first week of April. To read more see. Oxford Literary Festival Inside our subscription Edition
Colin Dexter, well know Oxford crime and mystery writer welcomes New York writer Irving Benig and his son for lunch (15 March 2008).
Stratford-upon-Avon's First International Festival of Literature
|
|
|
I met Colin Dexter, now 77, one of Europe’s top crime writers, over brunch in the garden of his North Oxford family home. What impressed, as we sat in the warm sunlight, was how modest Colin was about his great literary achievements. I felt I was talking to a neighbour, not a giant of European crime fiction, who has turned Oxford into a European fictional murder capital.
Lindsey Davis and Marcus Didius Falco
Davis’s Falco detective books are certainly popular, being sold throughout world, translated into many European languages and dramatised on the BBC. Her hero, Marcus Didius Falco, was voted recently by BBC listeners as the most appealing character in fiction. Davis herself has been awarded a string of honours, including the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award and the Sherlock Award for best comic detective. Her first Falco detective novel Silver Pigs (1989) was about a plot to overthrow the Emperor Vespasian rule (AD 69 to 79), and her eighteenth Saturnalia (2007) novel is about political scandals, murder and mischief during the Roman equivalent of Christmas.
It’s not only his fans who have come
to his door but in the past Hollywood film producers including Corman, Kubrick
and Spielberg, asking for permission to adapt both his general fiction and
science fiction stories. Even Britain’s Queen has awarded him with an OBE in
2002 for his services to literature.
Before we started the interview, Brian showed me to his jungle like back garden
at his Oxfordshire village home. Brian Aldiss calls it his ‘mystery garden’,
where in the bright sunshine, with the bubbling waterfall in the background, we
discussed his frog problem. Brain commented that ‘it had been a bad year for
frogs.’ I told him I had plenty to spare and would bring some round for him to
replenish his pond.
Increasingly, your fellow European commuter is likely to be listening to an audio book as reading the latest Harry Potter or Steven King paperback! Audio books have come a long way from being just the preserve of the visually impaired to a popular alternative way to enjoy a good book. The range of audio books available to the European public is growing by at a fast rate, from a passionate love story to science fiction. Listeners are finding new ways to use audio books from learning a language to as an aid to relaxation.
By Debora L. Spar, Price: £15.99
Deborah Spar’s latest book, ‘The Baby Business’ introduces a new and distasteful (?) subject of IVF (In Vitro Fertilisation), commonly known as “test tube babies”. This medico-scientific advances in human fertilisation has raised a storm of controversy involving, ethical, moral and commercial issues. Want a child, but don’t or can’t do it the traditional way, well you can go to your neighbourhood fertility clinic, with luck and sufficient funds for the baby of your preferred gender and optimal genetic mix using IVF. There are several different IVF techniques available, but the usual process involves; interalia, the women taking fertility drugs to help her produce more eggs. The eggs are then harvested and fertilized in the laboratory. The woman is given hormone drugs to prepare her womb to receive the fertilized eggs. The fertilized eggs are placed inside the womb and a normal pregnancy follows. As a result of IVF a child growing up today could have two fathers and three mothers. The sperm donor that produced the sperm, the woman that sold her eggs to the clinic, the surrogate mother who rented out her womb, and the infertile parents, that are bringing up the child.
NIAS Press (1 Oct 2006) 160 pages Price: £33.00
Stephan Eklof’s ‘Pirates in Paradise’ is a description and analysis of modern piracy today in South East Asia. Eklof paints a picture of today’s maritime criminals quite unlike that portrayed by Johnny Depp in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ or the characters in J.M.Barrie’s Peter Pan and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. It is clear from Eklof’s book, that modern day pirates are much more ruthless, violent and murderous than those portrayed for our entertainment.
Other Books Reviewed in our subscription editions
The European Union: Economics and Policies (Paperback) by Ali El-Agraa (Editor).
Machiavelli in Brussels: The Art of Lobbying the EU -- Updated New Edition by M.P.C.M.Van Schendelen (Paperback - 22 Jul 2007).
Public Affairs in Practice: A Practical Guide to Lobbying (PR in Practice) (Paperback) by Stuart Thomson (Author), Steven A. John (Author).
Origins & Development of the European Union 1945-2008 (Hardcover) by Martin Dedman (Author).
Ratifying European Union Treaties: Processes and Actors (Routledge Advances in European Politics) by Carlos Closa Montero (Hardcover - 1 April 2008).
United States of Europe : The Superpower No-One Talks About (Paperback) by T.R. Reid.
|
Send Email:
# with questions or comments about
this web site.
|
This
publication is primarily designed for media professionals; and it is a very
useful aide-
This is
Stratford-upon-Avon's first International Festival of Literature, to be held
over three days (Friday 18th, Saturday 19th, and Sunday 20th April, 2008) at The
Mercure Shakespeare Hotel, with at least five major writers taking part every
day – from 11am to 11pm.
