Who's Afraid of 'The Sunset Limited'?

Two men, two perspectives, one cramped room in downtown New York - The Sunset Limited is a play by Cormac McCarthy, featuring the characters 'White' and 'Black', who between them thrash out the point(lessness?) of existence. Fun, huh? Despite the typically grim McCarthy premise, the dialogue is full of character, and the occasional moment of dark humour, and the excellent HBO film stars Tommy Lee Jones alongside a typically charismatic Samuel L. Jackson in one of the best stage to screen adaptations I've seen in a long time. By the end of what is a rather draining experience, you really wonder what McCarthy's own outlook on life is - but I'm pretty darn sure the author of The Road and Blood Meridian isn't an optimist full of sweetness and light...

A Hospital Odyssey

Some morbid humour, some poetic demolishing of the fourth wall, and a greyhound called Wilson all feature in Gwyneth Lewis' comparatively new 'epic' poem, chronicling a woman's journey to save her husband from cancer. Gwyneth Lewis is instantly likeable, and A Hospital Odyssey has her light-hearted sense of humour in every verse. She's made the very best of an interesting concept, and this latest poem has been described as 'Paradise Lost meets Dr. Who' (in the blurb, so best taken with a pinch of salt). Despite a few gimmicks (Ariadne portrayed as a giant hospital spider, for example) it's a really readable work: but don't take my word for it, this is the Independent's review:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-hospital-odyssey-by-gwyneth-lewis-1882266.html

Dancing with Dragons

(NO SPOILERS)
I've cast Charles Dickens' Hard Times aside this week, for George R. R. Martin's fifth book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance with Dragons, and it's a mammoth of a book - nigh on a thousand pages! The guys in my nearest book shop seemed pretty excited about it as well, eagerly showing the way to a gleaming shelf-full of books.

Considering its size, no wonder it took so long, but with Martin in his sixties, fans are understandably hoping that the gap between the next few books, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, will be briefer. So, back to page 181..

P.S. The HBO show is well worth a watch, with one of my favourite TV intros of all time:

Into the Heart of Darkness..

...also known as the blogosphere.  Keep in mind this blog is written by one misanthropic person, for one misanthropic person, so beware. It's the audience that gives this blog the edge over a notebook, so many thanks! Full steam ahead, watching for unexpected author absences...