In the beginning there is Modesty. Cooler than the pretentious James Bond and with one of the cutest sidekicks in fiction, the drop-dead gorgeous Willie Garvin.
Modesty, unlike all the male heroes of the genre, has nothing to prove. The Bonds and assorted other action heroes all seem to be struggling incessantly to show us how macho they are. Modesty simply... is. An orphan from God knows where, she grew up in a refugee camp and wandered all across the Middle East as a child, picking up super-developed survival skills on the way. By her late teens she was running an international crime syndicate, The Network (no drugs and prostitution) and we meet her in the first book, 'Modesty Blaise', when she and Willie have retired, still only in their early thirties, if that, with too much time on their hands and a constant thirst for adventure. Not to mention all those finely-honed fighting skills to test out. Modesty and Willie charge around the world, drawn in reluctantly to a series of caper/adventures withimprobably nasty villains and ruthless opponents. All plotted to perfection...

Merci Eveline für den Tip- I am hooked-

I grew up with punk rock. My first concert ever was The Clash here in the Berner Festhalle my mother took me there. I was way impressed by way Joe Strummer was rocking the stage. Coming home from school my mother used to listen to "the Stranglers" and "PIL".
But when I became a teenager I was more into Nina Hagen and " Neue Deutsche Welle"

It was dub who made me listen to punk rock again. Reading Bass Culture made me realize the close link between dub music and punk rock. But why did all the teds like to go to reggae parties? What made uk working class kids listen to dub?

Don Letts, son of black immigrants has been there right from the beginning. Reading his book Culture Clash gives you insight into the time when punk rock happened.

Letts worked as a DJ in the Roxy, a London nightclub during the original outbreak of punk in England. As few bands of that era had yet recorded, there were limited punk rock records to be played. Instead, Letts included many dub and reggae records in his sets, and is credited with introducing those sounds to the London punk scene, which was to influence The Clash and other bands. As a tribute, he is pictured on the cover of the album Super Black Market Clash.

Culture Clash: Dread Meets Punk Rockers by Don Letts

Don Letts is Grammy Award-winning film-maker, celebrated DJ, co-founder of Big Audio Dynamite, British black icon. As a first-generation British-born black, Don Letts quickly learned to assimilate aspects of Jamaican culture into inner-city urban London life. Leaving school, he gravitated to Chelsea's King's Road, inhabiting the fashion world alongside Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. As resident DJ at the fledgling punk club The Roxy, Letts pumped a roots-reggae soundtrack to a predominantly white audience that included members of The Clash and the Sex Pistols, forging a link between the two clashing cultures. A chance meeting provided him with a Super-8 movie camera, the result of which was released as "The Punk Movie" and set Letts on a career resulting in over 300 influential promo videos featuring Sex Pistols, Pil, the Slits, The Clash, Bob Marley, and even the platinum-selling "Musical Youth", and most recently Franz Ferdinand. His feature films include "Dancehall Queen", the Grammy Award-winning "Westway to the World" - his documentary on The Clash - and Clash on Broadway. He recently directed feature documentaries for the BBC on Sun Ra and Gil Scott-Heron. Alongside The Clash's Mick Jones in Big Audio Dynamite, Letts pioneered dance culture and sampling techniques, hanging out with Africa Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, and the cream of the New York City hip-hop scene. Admired by Fellini, a friend of Bob Marley and John Lydon, and a documentarian of The Clash, Don Letts has never pigeonholed himself. This book is a firsthand account, told in Letts' own words - it's highly visual, revelatory, irreverent, entertaining, and staunchly individual.

once into the London of the 1970 you can also read these two books, both highly recommendable:

Human Punk by John King
Vintage; New Ed edition

The antihero of Human Punk is Joe Martin: poor white trash from the council estates of Slough. In the novel's first third, set at the "arse-end of the 70s", Joe is a teenage no-hoper into cheap booze and cheaper girls. He's also into the new punk music that has finally percolated down to the Middlesex hinterlands.

Stories we could tell by tony parson
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

This is a book about growing up and being young, about sex and love and rock and roll, about the dreams of youth colliding head-on with the grown-up world. Sometimes you can grow up in just one night...It is 16th August 1977 - the day that Elvis dies - and Terry is back from Berlin, basking in the light of his friendship with legendary rock star Dag Wood. But when Dag arrives in London he sets his sights on a mysterious young photographer called Misty, the girl that Terry loves. Will the love of Terry's life survive this hot summer's night? Ray is the only writer on the inky music weekly "The Paper" who refuses to cut his hair and stop wearing flares. On the eve of being sacked, Ray finds comfort in the arms of an older woman called Mrs Brown. But John Lennon is in town for just one night and Ray believes that if he can interview the reclusive Beatle, he can save his job. Can John Lennon and the love of an older woman really save a young man's soul? Leon is on the run from a gang called the Dagenham Dogs who have taken exception to one of his bitchy reviews. Hiding out in a disco called The Goldmine, Leon meets Ruby - the dancing queen of his dreams. But will true love or the Dagenham Dogs find Leon before the night is over? Tony Parsons goes back to his roots for this deeply personal book - the story he has been waiting to tell.

Some month ago I bought locatellis new cook book because Nigel Slater was so enthusiastic about it. He called it the best italian cook book ever! So I had to have it. Of course I did not find to much time to cook from it so far, but I did read it and I love it. It's full of lovely stories about his family and  the italian way of life. It is also a very nice book, full of beautiful pictures. If you are into italian kitchen and into nice cook books in general I highly recommend it.

The latest addition to my cook book collection. A must have! Voted the best cook book 06.
I have almost all of Nigels cook books - he is great. This one is made like a diary  very nicely written and full of simple recipes.

out on FOURTH ESTATE (2006)

Some of his books have recently been published again as paperbacks by the B.Shackman & Company. Almost a century old the adventures of Fluff, Puff & Arganon are still as surprising and appealing as ever.



Harry Whittier Frees

Once widely known throughout the US for his wonderfully cute photographs of animals, Frees began his career taking pictures for novelty postcards. By 1905 he was adding props and clothes to the shots to give the animals a more human image. His mother made most of the outfits which were designed to hold the animals in what can only be described as 'unnatural poses'. In all his books, though, Frees reassured his readers that these fantastic images were made possible |only by patient unfailing kindness on the part of the photographer at all times.

I just read this book by Tony Parsons and really liked it.

Heres the Synopsis (taken from amazon)

"This is a book about growing up and being young, about sex and love and rock and roll, about the dreams of youth colliding head-on with the grown-up world. Sometimes you can grow up in just one night...It is 16th August 1977 - the day that Elvis dies - and Terry is back from Berlin, basking in the light of his friendship with legendary rock star Dag Wood. But when Dag arrives in London he sets his sights on a mysterious young photographer called Misty, the girl that Terry loves. Will the love of Terry's life survive this hot summer's night? Ray is the only writer on the inky music weekly "The Paper" who refuses to cut his hair and stop wearing flares. On the eve of being sacked, Ray finds comfort in the arms of an older woman called Mrs Brown. But John Lennon is in town for just one night and Ray believes that if he can interview the reclusive Beatle, he can save his job. Can John Lennon and the love of an older woman really save a young man's soul? Leon is on the run from a gang called the Dagenham Dogs who have taken exception to one of his bitchy reviews. Hiding out in a disco called The Goldmine, Leon meets Ruby - the dancing queen of his dreams. But will true love or the Dagenham Dogs find Leon before the night is over? Tony Parsons goes back to his roots for this deeply personal book - the story he has been waiting to tell."

Japan never really had the equivalent of the Angry Young Man phenomenon - the beat and psychedelic movements largely passed it by, and in the 60' and early '70s student radicals were more concerned with Japan-US defense pacts than with turning on and dropping out. From that time, however, a small group of writers gained fame both at home and abroad, thanks to their works questioning materialism and searching for alternatives. The two most well-known proponents are Murakami Haruki and his unrelated namesake, Murakami Ryu.

Born in Nagasaki in 1952, Murakami Ryu came to Tokyo to enroll in the Musashino University of Art, but dropped out when he discovered that he was better suited to being a writer. He attracted literary attention with his debut novel, 'Almost Transparent Blue'. The novel won the Akutagawa Literary Award in 1976, and went on to sell over two million copies. Murakami wrote and directed the film version of the story in 1978.

"Almost Transparent Blue" is a brutal tale of lost youth in a Japanese port town close to an American military base. Murakami's image-intensive narrative paints a portrait of a group of friends locked in a destructive cycle of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in 70's Japan. Representing a sharp and conscious turning away from the introspective trend of postwar Japanese literature, this book polarized critics and public alike and soon attracted international attention as an alternative view of modern Japan.

Koushun Takamis berühmt-berüchtigter, hyper-dynamischer Thriller basiert auf einer aussichtslosen Grundlage. Eine Junior-Highschool Schulklasse wird auf einer einsamen Insel als Teil eines skrupellosen, diktatorischen Regierungsprogramms, ausgesetzt. Die Schüler werden mit Waffen ausgerüstet und gezwungen einander umzubringen bis es nur noch einen einzigen Ueberlebenden, den Gewinner, gibt.

Bei der Herausgabe zuerst als gewaltsame Ausbeutung kritisiert wurde das Buch in Japan schnell zu einem nationalen Bestseller.

-Battle Royale- ist ein -Herr der Fliegen- für das 21ste Jahrhundert. Ein starkes Sinnbild für was es in der heutigen -dog-eat-dog- Welt heißt, jung zu sein und (knapp) zu überleben. -Battle Royale- wurde zu einem ebenfalls kontroversen Kinofilm verfilmt und ist längst ein Teil zeitgenössischer japanischer Pulp Fiction geworden. Jetzt ist das Buch zum ersten Mal auf Englisch erhältlich.

Obschon ich mich selbst auch nicht als blutrünstig bezeichnen würde, hat mich das Buch nach einem ersten Überwinden dermaßen gepackt, das ich etliche schlaflose Nächte verbracht habe.