Lots of books in today's post. Lisa Moore's Dangerous Intimacies: Toward a Sapphic History of the British Novel (thanks to a footnote in another text), Pullman's Christian-baiting The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Menna Gallie's classic You're Welcome to Ulster (first edition but you can get a reprint from Honno here!), the Emily script, a collection of Anne of Green Gables essays and Aldiss's comic The Hand-Reared Boy. Must retire soon to get on with some reading.
Today's musical choice is some Ligeti, performed by the Arditti String Quartet. He was a brilliant Romanian-Hungarian modernist composer, whose music you'll have heard in 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining and possibly Eyes Wide Shut.
Overall, I'd describe his work as weird, beautiful, often electronic stuff. Try Atmosphéres, which doesn't care about tunes or timing, just about sound. Lux Aeterna is the piece from 2001, along with some of the Requiem. Some people think it's creepy or threatening. Maybe it is - but we're in a creepy and threatening world. Just ask an altar boy.
The first String Quartet though is much more contemplative. I find it very relaxing.
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