John F Kennedy This article is more than 13 years oldTed Sorensen, JFK's speechwriter and confidant, dies at 82This article is more than 13 years oldSome of Kennedy's most memorable speeches resulted from close collaborations with SorensenTheodore C Sorensen, the studious aide to President John F Kennedy whose poetic turns of phrase helped idealise and immortalise a tragically brief administration, has died at the age of 82.
Sorensen died at noon local time at a New York hospital from complications of a stroke, his widow, Gillian Sorensen, said. Read More...
Book of the dayFictionReviewAcademic jealousy and Renaissance magic mingle in this hit US debut, a satisfyingly brutal tale of ambition set in a Manhattan museum
Already a hit in the US, where it has been compared to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Katy Hays’s debut novel is about tarot, obsession, academic jealousy and Renaissance magic. This subject matter will intrigue many and discourage others. I was initially in the latter category, but it turns out that Hays is a writer who can skilfully navigate the narrow territory between suspense and melodrama. Read More...
FictionReviewby Alfred HicklingNew Yorker Iris Owens, who died in 2008, published only two novels under own name but many more as Harriet Daimler, purveyor of pornographic rape fantasies for the Parisian erotic imprint, Olympia. After Claude, which came out in 1973, was the first of her "legitimate" books, which means there is much speculative discussion of the heroine's rape fantasies but no actual depictions of the event. Harriet has been kicked out of her French lover's Greenwich Village apartment on the fairly reasonable basis that she is an acid-tongued slugabed who does nothing but sit around watching quiz shows and insulting his friends. Read More...
