Sunday Online Reading

The Times has an interview with John Irving about his new book and about finding his father's family. Irving's books always seem to be a combination of dark humor and anguish. His new one sounds like it will be no exception. Though after reading the interview I wonder how meeting his half-siblings and learning about his biological father will affect his writing? Will his next book be vastly different because of it?

Feeling like the erotic fiction you've been trying to write is a little flaccid? Maybe you need to get away to a creative writing workshop in Nova Scotia where you can spend September 2nd-4th with Mitzi Szereto author of Erotic Fairy Tales: A Romp Through the Classics and Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers among others. Your writing will be bursting with excitement in no time.

Take a quiz based on the book Dog Sense by Kathy Santo to find out just how alike you and your dog are. While my dog and I came out even on several qualities, we are vastly different on a few key ones. Thank goodness because I just don't see myself as a human cocker spaniel. He's sweet and all but he's a rather simple pooch of very little brain.

A.S.Byatt, a woman whose array of knowledge astounds me and whose fiction delights, reviews The Stuff of Life, a new exhibition at the National Gallery.

Doris Lessing has a new novel. But it sounds like I will have to get around to reading Mara and Dann first as this new book is a sort of sequel. Must. Read. Faster.