Christopher Hitchens on Bad Reviews, Salman Rushdie, Clive James, Cyprus (5/5) (1997)

October 26, 1997 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.... Watch the full program: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/11/christopher-hitchens-on-political...

Doris May Lessing CH (née Tayler; born 22 October 1919) is a British writer, author of works such as the novels The Grass is Singing and The Golden Notebook.

In 2007, Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was described by the Swedish Academy as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny." Lessing was the eleventh woman and the oldest person ever to win the Literature Prize.

In 2001, Lessing was awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British Literature. In 2008, The Times ranked her fifth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945."

Dame Margaret Drabble Holroyd, DBE (née Drabble; born 5 June 1939), known as Margaret Drabble, is an English novelist, biographer and critic.

Clive James AM (born Vivian James, on 7 October 1939 in Kogarah, New South Wales) is an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, his chat shows and documentaries on British television and his prolific journalism. He has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since the early 1960s.

James has published poetry in periodicals all over the English-speaking world. He has published several books of poetry, including Poem of the Year (1983), a verse-diary, Other Passports: poems 1958-1985, a first collection, and The Book of My Enemy (2003), a volume that takes its title from James' poem, The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered.

He has published four mock-heroic poems: The Fate of Felicity Fark in the Land of the Media: a moral poem (1975), Peregrine Prykke's Pilgrimage Through the London Literary World (1976), Britannia Bright's Bewilderment in the Wilderness of Westminster (1976) and Charles Charming's Challenges on the Pathway to the Throne (1981).

During the seventies he also collaborated on six albums of songs with Pete Atkin: * Beware Of The Beautiful Stranger (1970), * Driving Through Mythical America (1971), * A King At Nightfall (1973), * The Road Of Silk (1974), * Secret Drinker (1974), and * Live Libel (1975).

A revival of interest in the songs in the late 1990s, triggered largely by the creation by Steve Birkill of an Internet mailing list "Midnight Voices" in 1997, led to the reissue of the six albums on CD between 1997 and 2001, as well as live performances by the pair. A double-album of previously-unrecorded songs written in the seventies and entitled The Lakeside Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2 was released in 2002 and "Winter Spring", an album of new material written by James and Atkin was released in 2003.

James acknowledged the importance of the "Midnight Voices" group in bringing to wider attention the lyric-writing aspect of his career. He wrote in November 1997 that, "one of the midnight voices of my own fate should be [that] the music of Pete Atkin continues to rank high among the blessings of my life, and on my behalf as well as his I bless you all for your attention".

Peter De Vries (February 27, 1910 - September 28, 1993) was an American editor and novelist known for his satiric wit. He has been described by the philosopher Daniel Dennett as "probably the funniest writer on religion ever."

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[smurfieboo]

Maraniss is a total fucking bore