The Review section of the Observer very disappointing today. Only five pages on books, and uniformly boring (hot air ballooning? pah; Maya Angelou's mother? beyond parody, even for the Observer; and oh look there's Rowan Moore banging on about modernism yet again while the rest of us yawn our way through the post-lunch Sunday afternoon). The Saturday Guardian books pages yesterday were just as bad.
I want to see reviews of new books by young writers, historians, people with serious ideas - above all I want to see more emphasis upon literary style.
I want reviews written by professional critics, not other writers or odd ball famous people or hack journalists from elsewhere in the publication.
I am fed up with awards and do not care what the collective view of a literary panel is.
Nor am I interested in the "best writers" of the current era as - guess what - they are not best writers, they are just writers who are approved of by the establishment.
The degeneration of the Sunday newspaper books pages is perhaps symbolic of the cultural tiredness we are currently experiencing in this country - I gave up on the Sunday Telegraph because it became so formulaic, now the Observer has gone the same way I will have to go back to the Times Literary Supplement.
I want to see reviews of new books by young writers, historians, people with serious ideas - above all I want to see more emphasis upon literary style.
I want reviews written by professional critics, not other writers or odd ball famous people or hack journalists from elsewhere in the publication.
I am fed up with awards and do not care what the collective view of a literary panel is.
Nor am I interested in the "best writers" of the current era as - guess what - they are not best writers, they are just writers who are approved of by the establishment.
The degeneration of the Sunday newspaper books pages is perhaps symbolic of the cultural tiredness we are currently experiencing in this country - I gave up on the Sunday Telegraph because it became so formulaic, now the Observer has gone the same way I will have to go back to the Times Literary Supplement.
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