Happy Bloomsday

Today is Bloomsday, June 16, and I have writer links that cover sex and death.

For the sex: James Joyce. "Facts About Bloomsday and Joyce's Ulysses" is from the blog Interesting  Literature.  Here is the Modern Library list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century, which gives the top ranking to Ulysses. The novel is No. 6 on the Radcliffe list. Edward Champion (the Iain Banks fan mentioned a few days ago) is reading all 100 Modern Library books and writing about them for his blog; you can follow his progress here.  It will take him a little while until he gets to Ulysses but the next review will be for No. 77, Finnegans Wake. (Will he read the Finnegans Wake! blog?) In the meantime, Ted Gioia has three essays of interest as his Fractious Fiction site about experimental fiction: A piece about Joyce, an article about Ulysses and an article about Finnegans Wake. Hmmm, who else could Gioia write about if he's interested in experimental fiction?

As for death, the recent death of Iain M. Banks remains a fresh wound and interesting new articles keep popping up. Here is what is likely his last interview. (When Banks announced he had terminal cancer, I thought selfishly that there will be no more Culture novels. In the last interview, Banks talks about the work he was trying to complete before he died. "Also, just in case there's some highly unlikely good news, I want to make sure I've got the next Culture novel ready to go if I can." Unfortunately, Banks died even more quickly than expected. ) There is also discussion about the new novel, The Quarry, which is about a man with terminal cancer and which was almost finished when Banks suddenly learned about his own illness.

The interview also has some interesting facts about the fine Scottish science fiction writer Ken MacLeod. Ken's blog post about Banks links to Ken's interview about Banks on "As It Happens," a Canadian radio program, and Ken's article about Banks' science fiction.