I love Jenny Diski. I am a huge fan of her writing as well as her blog, which is sarcastic and bitchy and blood-tinglingly elitist. Not many people can get away with saying things like this:

Somehow it's more democratic to be a mediocre writer. We should actually train people to produce a good read. A good read is a sorry phrase which means unambitious, and not requiring any mental effort. The opposite isn't a bad read, but a demanding read. Why aren't we celebrating difficulty and complexity, instead of having books dismissed on those grounds and potential readers warned against them? Have we lost the notion of writers as anything more than producers of page turners to pass the time? It's pathetic. It's deadly, actually, like that phrase people use to put down bright children: you're too clever by half.

The dame has balls. And a damn good haircut. Oh yeah, and at the bottom of the page she bitch-slaps some contributors to her comments section for turning it into a wanking seminar:

Thank you both. Now I've introduced you to each other, maybe you could continue fine wines and signifier v signified debate conversation by email?

Love her.

Over at Pants McLee the question is posed: Can a person lose their reading mojo? Are books these days more put-down-able? Or is it just us and our big phat attention deficits?

I don't really know how to answer that one. I get the feeling it's taboo to even mention you find certain books not just ass but boring as all hell. Especially if you're an author yourself. Then it's double shame, especially if you're not so hot, skills-wise. In any case, I'd rather fling a book across the room in a fit of anger than have it slip from my hand as I'm snoozing.

What would Jenny say? It ain't us. It's the books that suck. But that's just my guess.

PS. I've only ever burned two books in my life. One was Gravity's Rainbow. I used the Mittelwerk section to start a bonfire on the beach in Thailand. And my own manuscript, in a woodstove. Because it sucked.