Tales Of Brave Ulysses

Almost forgot my weekly scan and post. Here’s a small little piece I like.

Kitagawa Utamaro, Illustration from Ehon Mushi Erami (Book of Insects), 1788.

The Guardian ran a story late last month about what English writers suggested every child should read. The British poet laureate set a high standard, including Joyce’s Ulysses, Paradise Lost, and Don Quixote. Others were more pragmatic, with JK Rowling pushing Roald Dahl’s books along with the typical school fare of To Kill a Mockingbird, Wuthering Heights and Hamlet.

Here’s the full list of writers and their recommendations.

Been meaning to mention this for awhile now: Check out this great web based game, the Tulse Luper Journey. I found the site through the excellent weblog Jay Is Games, which carries links and reviews of all sorts of online games and stuff. It’s all good.

Anyway, the Tulse Luper Journey is an offbeat and engaging game. Players follow Luper’s journey through 20^th century history, collecting suitcases he left behind. Luper was kind of like Zelig, he appears in various places and moments in history. The game is some sort of tie in to a new series of Peter Greenaway films. In a way, it reminds me of the ‘footage’ elements in Pattern Recognition, William Gibson’s latest novel.