Authors Electric

The instant I saw the fool reading that book, I knew he was going to die. He'd come to the job, a right son of a bitch, instantly deciding who his rivals and allies would be...who to suck up to and who to ignore. When I greeted him, he eyeballed me, then walked away without a word. At his desk, with elaborate care, he took out the fat book that signaled his ruin. One month later, he was fired. Robert Greene may have written the most famous guide to power next to Machiavelli's  The Prince.  It's a frightening tapestry interweaving principles, analysis and detailed applications. Greene's readers seem to fall into three camps, excluding the Avengers, Lady Gaga and Godzilla (none of whom need written help): 1)  Eyepoking Established Pricks (EEPs)  who have already mastered the basics and want to sharpen their wiles and claws to protect their fortunes. They share next to nothing of their own trade secrets but are remarkably skillful at getting rivals to con...

Italy is one of those countries you just have to love. It has some of the best countryside and most interesting towns and cities in the world; it’s the country of the Renaissance, of glorious art and architecture. Its wine, fashion and food are widely considered to be second to none. Besides, how can you not love a country shaped like a boot? Yes, there’s no doubt about it: Italy gets rave reviews all round. What of Italian literature, though? Ah, this is where things begin to go quiet – at least outside Italy. Italian literature has something of an identity crisis in the English-speaking world. Italy, at a fleeting glance, just doesn’t appear to have a literary tradition to rival those of France, Germany, Russia, Britain, or the United States. Mention ‘Russian Literature’, and vast numbers of writers will spring to mind: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pasternak, Pushkin, Turgenev, Bulgakov. If someone mentions ‘Italian literature’, what or who do you think of? Well, ...