Blogwatch: in brief

For the book-loving blogger like myself there's been plenty of interest to get my teeth into lately. At Glamorama there's a feature on the Japanese author Haruki Murakami, complete with a guide to each of the novels to have been translated into English. Murakami's not someone I know anything about, but Mike has done a very good job of selling him to me.

Meanwhile it's great to see that, during his convalesence, Kenny of Parallax View put his time to good use by burying his head in books, and he's subsequently posted a mammoth book review compendium, including thoughts on Zoe Heller's 'Notes On A Scandal', Chuck Palahniuk's first two novels and Jeff Noon's 'Falling Out Of Cars'. Zadie Smith's second novel 'The Autograph Man' comes in for a bit of a pasting, too. I'm assuming this means you made it to the end of Pynchon's 'Mason & Dixon' then, Kenny... (Also well worth a peek: Kenny's review of the recent Yeah Yeah Yeahs / The Locust / Devendra Banhart gig and an interview with Ann Shenton, formerly of Add N To (X) and now going under the moniker of Large Number.)

Robin of Speaking As A Parent has been on sparkling form of late. Though it's difficult to single out just one post to direct you to, I will: the one entitled "The dream shop" in which he writes about a recent dream, no doubt brought on by the consumpton of a hell of a lot of cheese, which concerned his discovery of "London's first proper right-wing retail outlet"...

... And finally: Troubled Diva is the place to go if you've been hunting around online for "arboreal porn" without success...