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| The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips | Book review In Alabama, little Tess has her quiet place, curled on the porch in the evening shadows with the family's creek-fed well keeping her company. But one night a woman appears, throws a swaddled – but living – infant into the water and then disappears. These are the opening scenes of Gin Phillips's novel. But in some ways, the baby-in-well business is misleading, because it goes on to command relatively little dramatic tension in the book, despite preoccupying Tess's thoughts. Instead, the old Southern tensions run throughout, as deep as the coal seams that Tess's tired, loving father works to keep the family alive. Though they work side by side down the mines, his black colleague Jonah won't come in for supper for fear of reprisals; the breathtaking poverty of their neighbours is nothing compared to the broken shacks of "Niggertown". Phillips writes in the first person, moving between family members every few pages, a shame because their voices are distinguishable only through their references to one another. But the single voice they share is a clear one and what remains is a lovely, subtle novel, a moving portrait of the Depression-era American South.Fictionguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Linklog: Libertarians for Scrooge, Stephen King on baseball, and more Some proportion of this "Libertarians for Scrooge" piece must be deliberate self-parody; determining how much, however, would require a very delicate critic. (Via.)• Still more contrarian: Boycott all books! They're evil!• What's involved in designing a Dan Brown cover.• The New Yorker on university press logos (sad about the Yale one).• Stephen King's baseball report for McSweeney's one-off newspaper. I want that thing. I'll probably keep wanting it until I get into a bookshop and see the price.• On Roald Dahl's advance from adulthood to childhood.Peter Robinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
End of Kirkus Reviews Brings Anguish and Relief Kirkus churned out nearly 5,000 reliably cantankerous reviews a year, which many librarians and booksellers used when deciding how to stock their shelves. feeds.nytimes.com |
PD James out to scupper BBC and Mark Thompson with maritime metaphor If Mark Thompson was expecting his encounter with the 89-year-old grande dame of British crime fiction to be plain sailing, those hopes were torpedoed and left dead in the water in under a minute early this morning.PD James, the latest guest to edit the Radio Four Today programme over the festive season, began her interview by telling the BBC director general of the affection she has for the majestic ship he steers.But it was not long before she moved in on the vessel with the ruthlessness of a submarine captain, deploying a brutal and protracted maritime metaphor and questioning both the BBC's "extraordinarily large salaries" and the quality of some of its programming."I think [the BBC] has changed," said Baroness James, who was one of its governors between 1988 and 1993. "And sometimes it seems like a very large and unwieldy ship that's been floating there since 1920 taking on more and more and more cargo, building more decks to accommodate it, recruiting more officers - all very comfortably cabined, usually at salaries far greater than their predecessors enjoyed - and with a crew somewhat discontented and some a little mutinous, the ship rather sinking close to the Plimsoll line and the customers feeling they paid too much for the journey and not quite sure where they're going, or indeed, who is the captain."After conceding that although her view was perhaps "a little unfair", she said it was how many people saw the BBC, and she then slammed a couple more torpedoes into the tubes as she raised the subject of corporation remuneration."It is extraordinary that 375 [BBC managers] earn over £100,000 and 37-plus more than the prime minister," she said. "An organisation that has 37 of its managers earning more than the prime minister ought to ask itself 'Is this justified?' "More puzzlingly, she said, such salaries seemed reserved for executives rather than programme-makers. "Somehow, the people who are doing the creative work - who are making the programmes - don't receive this largesse; it seems to be a huge great waste of middle management; a bureaucracy which it is very difficult to justify."Thompson replied that the BBC was not immune to commercial competition and had to spend more to attract the most talented candidates. "The current controller of BBC1 was working for a commercial broadcaster and we got her to come back. She will – like most of the people on that list – get less from the BBC than they were earning or could earn otherwise. They have to take a pay cut," he said."I think it is a false economy to say we are not going to have anyone as controller of BBC1 who earns more than £100,000, because in my view we wouldn't get the right candidates for the job."Thompson also pointed out that although he earned £834,000 – 17 times more than the average BBC salary – the disparity was far smaller than in the majority of FTSE-listed private companies, where the bosses could take home 100 times more than their junior colleagues.Nonetheless, he added: "It really is a privilege [to work at the BBC] and everyone here in the senior echelons should accept that there will be a very big discount."The one-woman armada also inquired whether the management-heavy, allegedly ageist BBC had a tendency to go head-to-head with ITV with populist shows – and indeed whether programmes, such as Britain's Worst Teeth, Dog Borstal and Help Me Anthea, I'm Infested, could be considered public service broadcasting."My life," giggled the writer, "has been much poorer, I'm sure, for not seeing Dog Borstal."Thompson shrugged off the criticism and, as the interview wound up, said that he was sure that John Reith and his fellow BBC founders would "be surprised and heartened by the fact that people inside the BBC still have a passionate enthusiasm for what they do".That passionate enthusiasm - not to mention James's fearless interviewing - appeared to have infected the regular Today presenter Evan Davis. "She shouldn't be guest editing, she should be permanently presenting the programme," he said, dangerously. "Very interesting indeed."BBCPD JamesMark ThompsonRadio 4Public service broadcastingTelevision industryRadio industryExecutive pay and bonusesRadioSam Jonesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
The Letters of Samuel Pepys, edited by Guy de la Bédoyère | Book review Drawing together more than 30 unpublished letters, this new collection spans Pepys's entire political career, and a fascinating period of British history. While the early letters contain rare vignettes of political life in the dying days of the Protectorate, the later correspondence maps the complex web of loyalties and allegiances of the Restoration court, culminating in the Glorious Revolution. The letters form an illuminating counterpoint and frame to Pepys's diary: less carefully orchestrated, they reveal a more complex and multi-faceted individual. The inclusion of a number of letters written to Pepys reveals him in the eyes of his correspondents as a man who commanded respect and affection.HistoryBiographyLettie Ransleyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |