Required reading

Last night I saw the Reduced Shakespeare Company's production 'All The Great Books' at the Birmingham Hippodrome - triumphantly daft and populist but not in itself much more than an hour and a half's worth of decent japesome entertainment. The show takes the form of a crash course in the novel, with the audience cast in the part of a remedial class who desperately need to get a grasp of the material to pass exams.

From a personal point of view, for a comic performance it was surprisingly worrying - because it brought home the unforgiveable gaps in my knowledge. I left not with tears still running down my cheeks (as some did) but feeling rather ashamed, and equally determined to plug those gaps. My reading needs to step up a gear.

On a related note, I've added (at long last) a set of author links to my sidebar - thanks to Glamorama for some of the URLs. Incidentally, Ballard afficionado Mike has posted some thoughts on his latest book 'Millenium People' - well worth a read.

Books and reading habits have also been the subject for discussion for Invisible Stranger, who (amongst other things) laments Martin Amis's recent loss of form.