Category Archives: reading list

Dead people in the pond, remind me baby of you – Woyzeck and Woyzeck

“Every human being is an abyss. One grows dizzy looking down.” Georg Buchner’s Woyzeck. Sounds like a cheerful little number, as Mrs Towers occasionally says.

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Twelve monkeys? Try twenty-six of the blighters

Via “City of Tongues” (Website of Australian author James Bradley, which I highly recommend as a source of good ideas, reading suggestions etc), I came to Kij Johnson’s site, specifically “26 monkeys.” Worth your time, imho.

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Fairy-tale endings and socialist politics… (a cross-post)

Some radical feminist called Sarah Irving has written the following – Despite the sudden descent of a lot of extremely Arctic air onto Edinburgh yesterday evening, it was very much worth venturing out for Sara Maitland‘s unofficial launch of her … Continue reading

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Dwight Towers reading Yeats’ “The Second Coming”

Don’t you have something – anything – better to be doing? I tried to upload it as an mp3.  WordPress wasn’t having any of it.  Therefore a youtube. This is how it SHOULD be read… http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=KTGHxd674MM

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Twelve books by the bedside table right now

Attention Conservation Notice: No reviews (yet), just apologies for and analysis of my “taste” Whoops! Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay By John Lanchester Straw Dogs: thoughts on humans and other animals by John Gray The Memoirs … Continue reading

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Leopard-food doesn’t change its maladaptive spots

Puny, largely defenceless bipeds on the savannah. Easy pickings for any passing leopard with hunger pangs, or the odd peckish hyenna. Rocks, spears, fire, safety in numbers. That’s about it, versus claws and fangs and muscle. And I reckon, warnings … Continue reading

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Three cool articles…

The Marsh Arabs of Iraq are on the way back. Really interesting and inspiring post about the Estonian singing revolution of 1988 (non-violent distributed protests involving social learning, etc) The blogosphere’s delusions of grandeur…

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Links 2011-03-19: Private Sector incompetence, calming down and clever parasites

Owen Jones has an excellent post inviting people to submit their stories of the incompetent, bureaucratic and wasteful PRIVATE sector. Many have already taken up his invitation… I had no choice but to part company with them and order lenses … Continue reading

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Guest Post: Mrs Towers defends fritterature

So, apparently I’ve become Mrs T for this purpose. Mildly ironic, since in the 3 months and 13 days (yep, I’m counting) we’ve been in Australia I’ve been getting low-level grief from Mr T’s real family for not changing my … Continue reading

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Neologism – “Fritterature”

Noun Umbrella term for the kinds of books that you read when you are frittering away your all-too finite time and energy instead of reading actual proper literature. Into this category falls all thrillers, “airport” fiction, romance novels etc. And … Continue reading

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