Morrissey joins royal wedding skeptic list

Morrissey has followed Martin Amis in dismissing the royal hype in branding the whole lot of them benefit scroungers.

The world’s your palate

Here’s a fascinating book out this month – Craving Earth by Sera Young. Eating dirt, to borrow the words of comedian Stewart Lee (on a completely obscure topic about Morgan Freeman which you may find hilarious offensive), is ‘a dance as old as time‘. The only person I’ve heard of doing it is Rebeca from Gabriel García Márquez’s 100 Years of Solitude.

Whether it has any benefits or disadvantages is unclear, but it’s something I could quite easily read about and bore people with endlessly. On another note, publishers of the book, Barnes & Noble, are locked in a war of words with Microsoft, something about an alleged infringement over the use of Microsoft software in their Nook e-reader concerning licence fees… and patents… and… yea.

Mountaintop removal; a tedious link

To stick with topics we learnt about from books; Jonathan Franzen in his epic must-read Freedom told us that Mountaintop Removal was bad. Bad and complicated. The practice has devastated much of Appalachia, doing irreversible damage to the rugged landscape.

A film documenting its destructive habits is to be released across America from June, hopefully making people more aware of this damaging process. If I lived in New York I would go see it. And the ebook signing. On Monday. Sigh. 

Harper Lee to bring out new biography?

The Telegraph reports today that Harper Lee is set to release a new biography explaining why she never wrote another book after To Kill a Mockingbird. Hurrah! The article then rushes out a list of one-hit authors with the usual suspects (though I was a bit surprised to see Joseph Heller not there).

However… Harper Lee denied taking part in the book in a statement released earlier, according to the Montreal Gazette. “Contrary to recent news reports, I have not willingly participated in any book written or to be written by Marja Mills. Neither have I authorized such a book” the elusive author wrote.

This reminds me of the book on Tom Wait’s life, The Lowside of the Road, which was published against the singer/actor/vaudeville pantomime genius’s wishes. It’ll be interesting to see how this one develops…