Coming together

One of my favourite authors is Hari Kunzru (The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions). In this article posted last month on his blog, he discusses the films of Michael Haneke.

Also, I see from William Boyd's official website that he has a new book out. In this recent interview he describes how he got the idea for the novel:

The idea for the novel started when I read that every year in London they take 60 bodies a year out of the Thames, usually at the bend in the river near Greenwich. That's more than one a week, but you never hear about them. And then I thought immediately about the opening scenes of Dickens's Our Mutual Friend and the body being pulled out of the river. And I figured out that there was a way of writing a novel in the way that Our Mutual Friend does, from the very top of society to the very bottom. It all began to come together.