Tag Archives: book review
Top 5 doomed literary loves
Perhaps it isn’t in keeping with the spirit of the season, as everyone loves a happy ever after, but sometimes it has to be acknowledged that the really great literature lives elsewhere. With that in mind, and with Valentine’s wishes … Continue reading
Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane
There are books that you long to read, waiting for the publishing date and shelling out for the hardback edition, putting them on real or virtual wish lists and champing at the bit until payday or a birthday comes around. … Continue reading
Filed under The Golden Country
Starlings by Erinna Mettler
Every night at dusk the starlings flock around Brighton like a great black wave, swarming through the sky, swooping around, over and under at lightening speed, yet miraculously never crashing into each other. Erinna Mettler’s first novel, Starlings, brilliantly connects the … Continue reading
Filed under The Golden Country
The question of Murakami
I can do tact and diplomacy when they are required, so a couple of months after arriving in Japan, when it dawned on me that even those students who were happy to talk about books and authors were going lukewarm … Continue reading
Filed under Japan
Alan Sillitoe, 1928-2010
Alan Sillitoe died last week and when I heard the news, my first reaction was sorrow. Not for Mr Sillitoe himself, but for us, left to negotiate without him a system that is still trying to beat us down, as much … Continue reading
Filed under The Golden Country
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
If any budding dramatists are reading this and would like to see in action an expert blending of political, social and personal history, they will go a long way before seeing a better example of it than in Hilary Mantel’s … Continue reading
Filed under The Golden Country
