[books] Experience in 400 words. “It is the late 1970s. The gross of condoms that Kingsley gave me and Phillip have long since been used.”

[books] More strange quotes from Barbara Cartland. “Men have always made a fuss of me. I still have several admirers who send me jewellery and chocolates. So I must be doing something right” – aged 96. [via Adorable]

[quote] The wisdom of Barbara Cartland: “The trouble with half the Socialists is they’re suffering from vitamin dificiency”

[news] Barbara Cartland is dead. The BBC has a tributes page — some of them sound… well, a little critical. I wonder why? “Perhaps her works were ignored by critics because they deserved to be ignored by critics. Dame Barbara blamed women for the permissive society. She blamed women for teen violence. She blamed women for – well, let’s face it: Dame Barbara blamed women for everything. Maybe that attitude was acceptable a century ago, but no longer. We women don’t need pampered millionaires scolding us for running our lives as we see fit. And we don’t need their implausible melodramas, either.”

[books] Surprisingly, Julie Burchill likes Kingsley Amis. Wierd!

[book] 253 a novel for the Internet about London Underground in seven cars and a crash

[interview] An interview with John Diamond [Text-Only] in the Observer. Diamond’s columns can be found at The Times Website. [Originally, I’d decided not to link to the John Diamond interview but it stuck in my mind for a couple of days, a friend mentioned it to me and I suddenly realised that columnists in newspapers and webloggers probably have a lot in common…]

[books] More profiles of Martin Amis: [BBC] The Martin Amis Experience [Sunday Times] Middle age is drawing the poison from his pen.

[books] Another Amis posting — the Digested Letters of Kingsley Amis.

[books] Final extract from Amis Autobiography — When darkness met light

[books] Extracts from Martin Amis’s new autobiography Experience: “I’ve been name dropping, in a way, ever since I first said: ‘Dad'” and “Mum, do you think I’m her father? – Definitely”

[books] booksUnlimited interviews Martin Amis. [Text Only]

[news] two random, unconnected (but interesting!) links from BBC News: Net sex addiction on the rise and Author [Stephen] King feeling better [after nasty car accident last year].

[tech] The wisdom of Jerry Pournelle: Installing A Linux Server Takes Savvy. Guh?

[books] booksUnlimited has Adrian Mole on the web: Diary of a Provincial Man.

[comics] Neil Gaiman has a website.

[pulp!] Pulp Book covers: Sex and savagery of Hells Angels, Satan was a Man or Confessions of a Pychiatrist — Every Boudoir was his office Every patient his plaything! [via PhilB<-Memepool]

[tech] Julie Burchill comes out of the closet as a technophobe [Text Only].

[lists] An interesting “Best of” series book-list from clip2.com.

[Books] Here’s the first chapter of Man and Boy. Tony Parson’s chats about his book in talkUnlimited.

[Books] Interview with Nick Hornby about the new film of his book High Fidelity. [Via Ghost in the Machine]

Can men read? Apparently men don’t like reading books with “love” in the title.

Books Unlimited lists Mohamed al Fayed’s favourite books. Here’s a link to the BBC News profile of al Fayed from late last year.

A life in Crime — Ian Rankin on crime novels. “Here’s the scoop: crime writing is sexy.”

According to the Guardian Labour MPs love Harry Potter books.