TWO MATTERS TO REPORT FROM LONDON TODAY.

1. I bought the one Man Booker shortlist title I haven’t read, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton), published price pds.14.99 but discounted pds.2.00 at Borders. I’ll read it in the next few days and report back. I read the first few pages coming home on the tube this afternoon and was quickly hooked.
Interestingly Lloyd Jones told me when the shortlist was first announced that this title was his pick to win.

2. I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum to see an exhibition that was on my list of must-do things while over here, The Art of Lee Miller.
I have known of and admired Lee Miller’s art for many years but my interest was really quickened after hearing her biographer Carolyn Burke talk about her at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival earlier in the year.
This Exhibition marks the both the 100th anniversary of her birth and the30th anniversary of her death and comprises several hundred photographs making an impressive retrospective.
As usual with such exhibitions I paid extra for the audio tour which proved to be excellent value and gave the exhibition so much more meaning.
The photographs were divided into six groupings: Surrealist Paris:1929-32;

New York Studio:1932-34;Travels in the 1930’s; War 1940-45; Post-War at Home.

Excellent. How I wished my NZ photographer friend, Harvey Benge, had been with me, he would have loved the exhibition.