Whenever I Am Sent A New Book

Rachel Cusk's Books Are Like Pop-up Volumes For Grown-ups, The Prose Springing Out Of The Page To Bop You Neatly Between The Eyes With Its Insights.

It Seems That One Moment I Was This Little Kid Only Caring About Animals And Flowers And Stuff, And Then The Next Minute I Was This Raging Stew Of Hormones. I Don't Know If You've Ever Been A Raging Stew Of Anything, But I Wouldn't Particularly Recommend It.

Big Women Do Themselves A Disservice When They Attempt To Become The Righteous Fat (the Righteous Thin Are Bad Enough, All That Running Around And Sweating, Somehow Believing It Means Anything).

And Call Me A Pig, But Isn't It Brilliantly Refreshing How Early The Dutch Eat Dinner? When They're Still Laying Out The Cutlery In Achingly Hip Barcelona, They're Hanging The Closed Sign On The Restaurant Doors Of Old Amsterdam.

May I Just Single Out For Salutations, On The "anti-war" Side: Pop Stars For Appeasement, Dancers Against Democracy, Actors For Apathy, Fashionistas For Fascism And Jugglers For Genocide. All Of Them United Under That Flaccid Flag Of Convenience, Show-offs For Saddam.