“Thousand-watt sadness”

“Skipping or skimming parts of a narrative should not only be expected but encouraged, particularly if an author is writing without clarity or purpose or showing off. Life’s too short to slog through some smarty-pants attempt to demonstrate a mastery of mechanical engineering or botany.” Adam Kirsch and Anna Holmes face off for The New York Times Bookends column about whether there are right and wrong ways to read a book.

You’d think the home country of Agatha Christie, Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes would remain the home of great mysteries, but apparently the UK is in trouble. At least, that’s the argument of Christopher Fowler, a writer who smells a rat.

Philippe Claudel’s novel Brodeck’s Report has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The book was released in the U.S. as Brodeck and sounds mighty intriguing.