Mark Charan Newton

Very happy to see Salman Rushdie winning the Best of the Booker Prize Award.

Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize in 1981. It was then chosen as the Booker of Bookers in 1993 - the only other time a celebratory prize has been awarded.
The Best of the Booker shortlist was selected by a panel of judges [...]

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Most people know by now about the suicide of Thomas M. Disch.
I only ever read two books by the guy, Camp Concentration, and his collection of essays on the genre, On SF, enough to know he was a man who wrote with intelligence, style, and passion. A rare beast indeed.
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Interesting post on the Guardian website about what hitting the big four-zero does to male writers.
Perhaps the most complete accounts of midlife crisis come, as ever, from Shakespeare. Few would question the autobiographical nature of the The Tempest, in which an ageing Prospero breaks his staff and turns his back on “this rough magic”. It’s [...]

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Some thoughts on a book I read late last year. The Alexandria Quartet comprises of four novels, Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea. The first two are the most tightly linked, for everything you know in Justine is looked at from another angle, although still from the same narrator. Mountolive is more distant, and Clea certainly [...]

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I think I love her. Yes, I really think I do.
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And this piece in the Guardian, where some dude is discussing his hatred of second-hand books. You have to admit, he might have a point on one or two of the matters.
It’s all [...]

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One of my favourite reference books is The Book Of Imaginary Beings, by Jorge Luis Borges.
If I have a problem with the fantasy genre at the minute, it is that, on occasion, it does not embrace… erm… fantasy. It can be quite conservative in the imagination department, and I wonder where the fantasy has [...]

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Now, I came across Kiva Microfunds and thought the whole thing pretty damn interesting. Apparently, Bill Clinton thought it a good idea too.
Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.
Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.
The [...]

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Nice little interview with J.G. Ballard at the Guardian website. There really is no one quite like him. A couple of years ago I read a few of his books in the usual author flings I have, where I buy up lots of their books and proclaim them the best thing that ever happened to [...]

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Or at least the fiction market. Here are some things to consider:
1 ) The majority of people who read a lot of fiction love books, the physical thing. Period. They are unlikely to stop buying books because of this physical love. They like them on their shelves. They like walking up to them. Perhaps lending [...]

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I was intrigued to read about this bit of news from star editor and all-round Top Bloke, Lou Anders. It got me thinking about the differences between Swords and Sorcery Fantasy, and Epic Fantasy. I think there’s a distinction to make.
Epic Fantasy for me has multi-stranded plots, huge amounts of movement, deep worldbuilding, and [...]

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