Friday, September 29, 2006

Cheltonian books

Sarah Smyth, director of The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, picked six books with a connection to Cheltenham.

Here is half of the list:
Portrait of Elmbury by John Moore
A much-loved evocation of a small English town, based on nearby Tewkesbury and its beautiful surroundings, by the director of the first festival in 1949.

Mad Joy by Jane Bailey
Latest heart-warming novel by the Cheltenham-based writer appearing at this year’s festival, set in a Cotswold village.

Therapy by David Lodge
Set in Cheltenham at the then-fictional (but now real) University of Gloucestershire.
Click here to see the other titles.

Lodge's book is the only one I've read. If memory serves, it's fine stuff.

From his mini-profile in the Guardian:
Did you know?
Lodge invented a literary parlour game called 'Humiliation' in Changing Places, which remains popular at dinner parties. Players name classics of literature that they have not read, the winner being the one who exhibits the most woeful literary lacuna. In Changing Places, Lodge's obnoxious American academic, Howard Ringbaum, admits that he has never read Hamlet - and thus wins the game (but loses his job). Lodge himself owns up to War and Peace.
The profile leads with this quote: "Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way round."

Click here to read a brief post titled, "Is it funny to see David Lodge embarrassed?"

--Marshal Zeringue