Kate Gould

Annie Proulx - Fine Just the Way It Is

4 Sep 2008

Fine Just the Way It Is marks Annie Proulx's return to Wyoming, the setting of two previous collections of short stories. The cast is, at once, familiar and fantastic. The devil refurbishes hell, adding to the décor centuries of portraits by mortals…

Lisa Appignanesi - Express yourself

14 Aug 2008

Kate Gould finds Lisa Appignanesi on good form as she discusses the history of health and the future of censorship

Daniel Barenboim - Everything is Connected

14 Aug 2008

MUSIC ANALYSIS (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) In 1999, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said set up the West-Eastern Divan Project, enabling young Middle Eastern musicians to work together. Now, in a collection of essays and articles that is part manifesto, part…

Thomas Glavinic

Telling a tale about the very nature of being

7 Aug 2008

From Mary Shelley’s The Last Man to I Am Legend, the idea of being the last person alive would seem to have an abiding fascination. Thomas Glavinic’s take on it, Night Work, tracks Jonas, who awakens one morning to discover he has, for reasons that are…

Frank Woodley

Ghost story with giggles

7 Aug 2008

Frank Woodley is a multi-talented man whose one-man show, Possessed, is a surprising, zany, and dramatic mix of acrobatics, slapstick, song, pathos, wit, and caricature. The wheezing narrator tells us this is a spooky, scary love story. Model boat maker…

Domestic Goddi

7 Aug 2008

For those sick of the myriad demands the modern woman is expected to sate, this female double act offers an hour's reprieve. From traumatic waxing and inflatable dolls to teachers' bitter child-hating, you're more likely to chuckle and nod in condolence…

Miles Jupp

7 Aug 2008

Jupp makes being the alternately inept and outraged Englishman into an art form. Revealing a vulnerability not often seen onstage in the modern male, with rolling anecdotes and zany observations, Jupp's endearing, sharp humour is irresistible. If you…

Zoe Lyons

7 Aug 2008

Self-confessed middle class binge drinker and veal muncher with a clown shoe carbon footprint, Lyons makes the simple seem hilarious. From eco-parents and the bitterness they spawn, to Chanel knock-offs and the megabus, her timing is sharp, her delivery…

Animal Olympics - Francesca Beard

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

22 Jul 2008

With her daughters’ stuffed toys and an inspired wit, poet Francesca Beard is bringing the Chinese Zodiac to the Fringe. Her first solo Edinburgh show, Animal Olympics, is ostensibly for kids, telling the tale of the animals racing to work out the order…

Janet Frame - Towards Another Summer

19 Jun 2008

Blurring of fiction and fact and the overlapping of character and writer have long influenced the interpretations of Janet Frame’s work. With her writing featuring characters who resembled her and experiences lifted from her life, readers have often…

Lisa Appignanesi - Mad, Bad and Sad

14 Feb 2008

CULTURAL HISTORY (Virago) Possession, love, sex (too much or too little), religion, abuse, grief and heredity are some of the myriad causes of women’s madness, according to this book, which is subtitled ‘A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from…

Tom Paulin - The Secret Life of Poems

4 Jan 2008

LITERARY CRITICISM (Faber) The extent to which you’re likely to enjoy Tom Paulin’s The Secret Life of Poems depends entirely on what you’re hoping to get out of it. If you’re looking for a ‘poetry primer’ (as the book is billed) that breaks down every…