In the 21st century, utopian theories do not stand up to any criticism, we no longer believe in the existence of separate, isolated worlds in which life runs by some other rules and brings more joy and happiness. Of course there are no such worlds, but there are places very close in spirit and content, and the legendary island of Mallorca is one of them. The island is not just “part of the land, surrounded by water on all sides”, the word “island” evokes a whole variety of associations, ranging from children’s adventure novels to a super-image of buying your own island, which indicates that you belong to the elite of the planet that can afford such luxury. We grow up and realize that adventure with pirates in the jungle of a desert island is better left in the novels, and buying a private island is a pure adventure, given how difficult, expensive and sometimes impossible to exploit such property. But the word “island” still has some magic, causing pleasant associations.
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Hemp oil is a product derived from the seeds of the plant, which belongs to the Hemp family. The oil has a light greenish tint, tastes like sourness, and has a weak but pleasant smell. This product is obtained by cold spinning or hot pressing. Nowadays, American scientists have found that this product contains a lot of useful elements.
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To be really beautiful and to be admired by everyone at the age of 20 is easy, at 30 – the result of some effort and self-discipline after 40 – a real art. Many women at the age of 40 are convinced that the world is made only for young people – hence all their problems and complexes. At the moment matrimonial is possible at any age.
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In November 1797, Thomas Cadell, of the eminent London publishing firm Cadell & Davies, rejected Jane Austen’s early draft of Pride and Prejudice. The letter he’d received from Austen’s father was perfectly cordial; in truth, it was rather sweet (‘As I am well aware of what consequence it is that a work of this sort should make its first appearance under a respectable name[,] I apply to you’), and adorably naïve in its assumption that one of the most successful firms in England would be piqued by ‘a Manuscript Novel, comprised in three Vols. about the length of Miss Burney’s Evelina’, from the unknown daughter of an unknown parson.

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Even after this novel won the National Book Award for 2011, I put off reading it. I wanted to read it; I just wanted to be able to skip over the parts centering on dog fighting, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that. I can’t skip over parts of a book unless they’re totally boring, and I knew Salvage the Bones, whatever else it was, wasn’t going to be boring.

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Of all the delightful idiots filling the pages of our well-worn copies of Pride and Prejudice (hint: this is everyone except maybe Charlotte), one of the best is also one of the most overlooked—even by Jane Austen, who never grants her a first name. Mrs. Bennet, mother to the five Bennet sisters and incorrigible social gadfly, is largely dismissed by both the book’s readers and its facetious narrator, but she is perhaps the most radical character in the novel.

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I love William Boyd’s novels, in particular, An Ice Cream War, Brazzaville Beach, and A Good Man In Africa. With Restless and Ordinary Thunderstorms, however, Boyd ventured – successfully, I might add – into the realm of the spy thriller. Spy thrillers have never been my cup of tea, so I was hoping Boyd would return to the well written literary novels of Brazzaville Beach and A Good Man In Africa. His latest effort, however, Waiting for Sunrise, continues covering the same type of genre territory he covered in his two previous books.

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There’s an urban legend that stalks English Departments about Charlotte Brönte denouncing Jane Austen. “Jane Austen paints a very fine garden,” she is reported to have said. “Step out the gate and we’ll show you the world.”

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Most of us have strong views about South Africa. Most of us know what South Africa under apartheid was like, if not firsthand, then from news reports, magazines, books, or other people. In Patrick Flanery’s wonderful debut novel, Absolution, set in the years before and after South Africa’s first free election in 1994, one character who knows the “ins and outs” of apartheid is celebrated novelist, Clare Wald.

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