Clerical Errors - Alan Isler

Forget kindly, selfless Father Flanagan - his antithesis is Father Edmond Music, a priest gone far astray. He finds joy in celebrating the pleasures of the flesh with his housekeeper, Maude, is involved in the disappearance of a thought-to-be Shakespeare manuscript, was born a Jew, and worst of all, he's an unabashed atheist. Let's say up front that some will be offended by what they may consider blasphemy; it's pure Isler who won the 1994 National Jewish Book Award for "The Prince Of West End Avenue." He's satirical, laugh out loud funny, exquisitely literate, and touching. He's also unwilling to be reined in by "popular ...  Read the complete review

It’s high time I wrote another oppie for the DLS (Dooyoo Literary Supplement). The reason I haven’t done so for a while is not that I haven’t read anything, I have, but nothing I wanted to review. I was sure I’d write on Stephen Fry’s The Stars’ Tennis Balls, I had looked so forward to this book, but I was disappointed and when I learnt that it’s a rewrite of The Count of Monte Christo even more so. All German bookshops offering English books get them from a firm in Hamburg, so when I browse through one I find the choice of a choice, first the people in Hamburg decide which books to import at all, then the bookshop ...  Read the complete review