BOB DYLAN WEEKENDS - THE FOOD BOOK

It's Friday, October 24 - which means it's official publication day for Sarah Beattie's new, seventh book, Meat-Free Any Day: Food For All Reasons, published by Select, UK (978-1908256508).

For anyone open-minded about, and truly interested in, food and its great pleasures, this is a compelling collection of imaginative, innovative writing and photography.

It's also a sampler of the food our guests have eaten at the Bob Dylan Discussion Weekends here in Southwest France - food which those guests have written afterwards to rave about like this:
 

"the food sublime"

"Wonderful food"

"delicious meals"

"Sarah's cooking was brilliant"

"Sarah's fantastic food"

"Lovely food"

"absolutely outstanding"

"The food was divine"

Obviously I'm not disinterested, but I'm sincere in saying - and I say this as a omnivore - that this is an exceptional book from a superb cook, and you should buy it.

 

SALE! "BOB DYLAN ENCYCLOPEDIA GREATEST HITS" CD HALF PRICE

Sale! From today the beautifully digipackaged CD Bob Dylan Encyclopedia Greatest Hits  is half price for a limited period: £5 + p&p instead of £10 + p&p.

The running-time is 56 minutes 34 seconds. Tracklist is of the author (ie me) reading this varied selection of entries from The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia:

1.  1965-66: Bob Dylan, Pop & the UK Charts  [6:19]

2.   Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat  [3:33]

3.   Being Unable to Die, and Howbeit  [3:00]

4.   Blood On The Tracks  [10:49]

5.   Telegraphy and the Religious Imagination  [4:40]

6.   Eat The Document  [4:38]

7.   Frying An Egg On Stage  [0:52]

8.   Duluth, Minnesota  [3:52]

9.   Musicians' Enthusiasm for Latest Dylan Album, Perennial  [0:52]

10. Dylan in Books of Quotation  [3:31]

11. “Love and Theft"  [13:35]

Buy it now! from www.michaelgray.net/shop.html

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE ON THE DREAD OF QUIETNESS

David Foster Wallace, author of the huge and hugely successful novel Infinite Jest and much else besides, seems to arouse as much vitriol as he does admiration. As a talking head, though, he appeared not at all eager to court controversy. Here he was suitably quiet on the loss of quietness in our culture:



He suffered from depression for many years, managing it with antidepressants until they seemed to stop working. He hanged himself in September 2008, leaving an unfinished novel,The Pale King, which was published in 2011.

A FINE RANT - PAY THE WRITER!

This should be played very loudly to every radio programme producer, including those at BBC local radio stations, who never mention money and therefore force you to mention it, at which point they come on to you as if they're a charity organisation and/or sound shocked that a writer should have anything so sordid as money in mind.

This interview was recorded in 2007, and is copyrighted to some corporation. I hope it's his. This venal unwillingness to pay writers has grown exponentially since this. My dilemma is, of course, that I am not paying him to use this interview. And neither am I being paid for writing this blog. It's all media madness.