I’ve broken the habit of a lifetime by finally reading an issue of Granta in the year—although not the actual season—in which it was published. I don’t feel too bad about coming to this particular issue six months late because, presumably, it’s intended to last us for the next ten years. This is Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists 2007. (more…)

Lately I’ve been reading two biographies: Ian MacNiven’s 800-page monster Lawrence Durrell: a biography and the Hesperus Press edition of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Life of Dante, from their “100 Pages” series. I don’t think you have to see the title of this post—or the attractive cover image on the left—to work out which one I finished first.

Giovanni Boccaccio was still a child when his fellow-Florentine Dante died in 1321. As a result of this, there’s something quite wistful about the Life of Dante, in which Boccaccio praises Dante’s virtues and rails against his enemies (including, in several stirring chapters, the entire population of Florence). It must have been frustrating to have lived so close in both time and place to Dante and yet to have missed him. (more…)

US film maker Karen L. Mintz is in the process of making what looks like a fascinating documentary about the nation of Bhutan: Gross National Happiness, 68 Miles from Thimphu. (more…)

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