SPONGE!

It seems a good time to kickstart this blog back in to existence with some rather good news. I'm proud to announce that 4th Estate, Harper Collins with be publishing my next novel VULGAR THINGS...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2013/04/its-official.html

Hullo, I've decided to start blogging again. I have no idea why. To celebrate here's me reading from THE CANAL over at InDigest Magazine .

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2011/07/start-again.html

Hullo, I've not been on here for a while (for myriad reasons), but shortly I will be posting a whole wealth of new stuff. I've mainly been trying to finish my next novel 'Amber' (which should be ...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-stuff.html

I hope this clears up a few things: it's not the symbolic beauty of the swan I find remotely interesting, it's the return of the image of the swan back to butal, violent myth that interests me: ...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/10/brutal-myth.html

It's time for The Guardian's 'Not the Booker Prize' again and it looks like a few people have nominated The Canal . I can't thank people enough for this. I'll be interesting to see who makes it...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/09/booker-not.html

I stumbled across Ned Beauman’s (author of the highly entertaining Boxer, Beetle ) musings on Heidegger’s BEING AND TIME the other day. Although his approach/reading stems from a rather con...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/08/logical-positivism.html

THE INDEPENDENT have published my 'Book of a Lifetime' - it's Ann Quin's 'Berg' , which if you haven't read, I suggest you give a try. It's simply wonderful. It's also a peek at what the Briti...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/08/ann-quin.html

My novel The Canal has been included, alongside eleven other debut novels, in Amazon UK's 'Rising Stars - Best New Literary Fiction' list for 2010. What this means is a big promotion push fro...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/08/rising-star.html

As I type this we are just eight days away from the *UK launch* of The Canal . Below is a list of my readings and events for July & August: JULY 12TH: To Hell with the Lighthouse , featuring...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/07/author-events.html

THE CANAL is now published in the US and available from all good bookstores and the usual online booksites such as Book Depository , Amazon.com , Amazon.co.uk , Powell’s , et cetera . . . You ...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/07/canal.html

I am currently missing the planes above London. I always watch the planes at they make their way to Heathrow, or climb into the sky from City Airport. The sky is oddly quiet without them. And I ...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/04/vapour-trails.html

Below is a great interview with one of my favourite writers, Jacques Roubaud : "Not many writers write from both the right and left brains, but Jacques Roubaud bridges that chasm much like an e...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/04/roubaud-interviewed.html

News of some new Josipovici via This Space . . . "The quality of today's literary writing arouses the strongest opinions. For novelist and critic Gabriel Josipovici, the contemporary novel in...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-josipovici.html

Novelist and literary critic Jeff Bursey has reviewed Gabriel Josipovici 's 'After & Making Mistakes' over at The Quarterly Conversation . 'Like Beckett’s plays, Gabriel Josipovici’s wo...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/03/gabriel-josipovici.html

Non-Working Doing Its Work: An Interview With Hendrik Wittkopf & Lee Rourke By Andrew Gallix. 3:AM: How did the collaboration come about? Hendrik Wittkopf: We engaged during discussions of Le...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/03/interviews1.html

Melville House ’s The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven, has won the Best Translated Book Award for Fiction, while the Ugly Duckling Presse book The Russian Version by Elena Fanailova, ...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/03/melville-award.html

WHAT GOES INTO A GREAT TRANSLATION? Recently Michael Hofmann's new translation of Franz Kafka's entire oeuvre landed on my doormat. I love reading Kafka; I always have done, even as a teenager...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/03/in-print11.html

Who cares about Ann Quin? "A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father . . ." For me this is the greatest opening first line of any nov...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/in-print10.html

I was thinking the other day about which contemporary, living novelists have influenced my own writing the most. I have compiled the below list, each of these novelists has inspired me greatly,...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/influential-novelists.html

I re-read the first INS manifesto today. It’s possibly one of the most thought-provoking and utterly maddening manifestos I’ve ever read. It serves as a vehicle that delivers us to our own...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/ins-manifesto.html

The Canal , a novel by Lee Rourke . *

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/islington-tunnel.html

AFTER & MAKING MISTAKES, BY GABRIEL JOSIPOVICI In his 2007 lecture "What ever happened to Modernism?", Gabriel Josipovici argued "the trouble with novels is that the only meaning they can have...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/in-print9.html

Running Away, By Jean-Philippe Toussaint (translated Matthew B Smith) Jean-Philippe Toussaint, a recent Prix Decembre recipient in France, has carved out a niche in pared down, slapstick litera...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/in-print8.html

The Canal , a novel by Lee Rourke . *

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/canal-art.html

AFTER THE FIRE, A STILL SMALL VOICE, BY EVIE WYLD As in all catastrophe, war creates its own aftermath. It leaves in its wake all manner of human detritus – physical or emotional – alone t...

http://scarecrowcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/in-print7.html