Millenial malaise is so...millenial. Collective responsibility is the new thing. Don't read Will Self, read David Mitchell, both Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten. Not only great stories, but the internal connections (between characters, for example) as well as the connections between the novels will fascinate.

John Banville won the Booker prize for The Sea. It sounds like an intriguing book. John Sutherland, the chair of the judge's panel, remarked on the struggle to describe the novel in The Guardian today:

What, one wondered, would the epithet be? "Controversial"? "Safe"? "Eccentric"? "Grotesque"? In the event the papers next morning settled on "surprising".

But Sutherland was clear that the reason it won was because it contained more "art" than its rivals. Admittedly though, its rivals may have had "more reader appeal, more energy, more human interest, [and] more punters' cash riding on them." His explanation could, of course, just be read as more of a justification for the prize than the book. Look - my prize is more worthy than yours because it considers and values real artistry as opposed to your crappy commercial populism. Whatever, it's an interesting metric of value.

And there was also an interview with Banville himself. All very so-so. But what delighted me was his "world exclusive" disclosure of the first line of his next novel:

He explains that the book is based on a story of the gods, in which Jupiter bullies Mercury to extend the night-time so that he can seduce a girl. "And Mercury is very resentful, sitting there in the dark, not allowing the dawn to come up, and he says, 'Of all the things we gave them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works.' That is my first sentence."

What a glorious line and what a glorious premise for a story. I can't wait to read it. He's definitely not a contender for the Bulwer-Lytton prize. (Thanks Flambingo)

I didn't ever expect to do an MA with self-help books on the reading list. But Sussex University is good like that. And this MA is a reflection of the slightly out-there thinking that attracted me to Sussex for my BA over ten years ago, and now for an MA in Arts & Cultural Management.

Part of the course involves thinking through the dynamics of being a worker - what kind of worker are you? How do you like to work best? How do you get the best out of those you work with, and yourself, particularly if you're into working creatively, regardless of the work? And group dynamics too: what could be considered effective group dynamics? And ineffective? How to encourage the effective? And so on.

And so to help you think through some of these ideas - or perhaps form your own ideas in response to what's in the book - is the somewhat infamous The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono. I'm a bit nervous about being caught reading these books on the tube. I mean, are they really still relevant? Aren't they just a bit embarassing and read only by American MBA sorts who wear chinos and blue shirts? I guess I don't have to follow the advice...

I am, however, considering actually following the advice in Getting Things Done by David Allen. It's all very sound (make lots of lists, then follow them: fair enough.) Lots of people consider him a "saviour", as Ben Hammersley wrote in the Guardian recently, with "fire in his eyes". The only problem is that you have to clear your inbox before you start. What, your whole inbox? Oh. That daunting task makes me want to give up before I've even started and go back to reading fiction and the Sunday papers...which is where I found this gem, which just about sums it all up really: