Bright Lights, Big City

"You're not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning" ranks for me among the best first lines of all time. Books, movies, plays, you name it. I can't remember before or since reading a novel written in the second person and its done brilliantly and to great effect in this book. This novel is more or less the story of all wanna be writers who aren't really writing, who're stuck at jobs they're terrible at (pick any floor at any large company and you'll find at least one of these dudes in one of the cubicles), telling themselves that the life they're leading is simply the experience for their opus, their Trainspotting, their high Fidelity, when in fact the life of the writer that they fantasize about is just a distraction them from the precipice they face, in their jobs, in their relationships, in their need for their version of Bolivian marching powder.
It also addresses many of life's essential mysteries: Is a ferret a good pet? Why do we love trash news? (coma babies aren't my thing but I'm a sucker for English royalty gossip) What is the household dust mostly made of? How terrible do you have to be at your job before a company will actually fire you? (In Germany, being terrible at your job actually has little impact)
The book ripped down to its essense is that a writer needs to write. Otherwise, you're drinking and doing drugs. You're running after your old flames. You're stuck in a life that you will regret. You're chasing a dream which will always remain that. The story told in Bright Lights, Big City only works because of the book. The life lived without the book is a void.
Oh yeah: The movie's not bad either.

Salman Rushdie's Knighthood

With the controvery that has wrapped the knighthood awarded to Salman Rushdie, people in the west who question the award forget that he wrote one of the greatest books of the 20th Century, Midnights Children. The knighthood isn't being awarded for writing Satanic Verses but rather for his body of work which includes some of the best novels in the english language.
Disregarding the protest of the Muslims or inflaming them is clearly no way forward but then neither is rescinding the award.
Its clear there are certain things that get under Muslims skin: the war in Iraq, the status of the Palestinians, the state of Afghanistan, the war in Yugoslavia and those are all things we in the west need to address. Rescinding the knighthood will in no way alleviate any of these festering grievences. Regardless of whether the award is rescinded or not, we will all hear about the award for years to come as a point of insensitivity to Islam, as a point of how the west does not understand Islam. Or the plight of Muslims.
It could well be that the west may not understand Islam but in turn, Muslims do not understand the west either. To westerners, this is purely an issue of freedom of speech. Muslim belief does not extend freedom of speech to matters relating to the prophet Mohammed but again, that is a cultural issue which needs understanding on both sides. Rescinding the award would send the signal that the misunderstanding is a one way street when there's clearly work to be done on both fronts.
The best that can be hoped for under the current situation is for a muslim cleric of high respect to try to explain what freedom of speech means in the west. People who are already enraged and burning effigies will not be sated but at least its a step forward. We should also ask from the Muslim community what can be done in cases like this in the future. Its clear that we need to take their views into account before rather than after such incidents are played out.