In February 2021 concerns across the globe are rightly focussed on the COVID-19 pandemic. Humans will survive this disease, and so far the global death toll is nowhere near the estimated 50 million dead of the 1918 flu pandemic.(1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus) | Pandemic Influenza (Flu) | CDC) Once the virus has been tamed the […]
Collapse by Jared Diamond Read More »
Confined to barracks during the pandemic of 2020 many people have found time for reading in a way not possible in their normally frenetic lives. ( Research finds reading books has surged in lockdown | Fiction | The Guardian ). At the same time, community services have come to be valued during this stressful past
Public library and other stories by Ali Smith Read More »
It looks like we’re headed for a long series of mini lockdowns and complex restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Combine that with the joys of the Scottish winter, and many will seek an escape into fiction. Any other world might seem preferable to this. Diane Cook (https://dianemariecook.com/) offers such an escape. Cook’s writing has appeared
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook Read More »
At the start of July 2020 we have enjoyed one hundred days of lockdown in Britain. This has been ample time in which to fail to re-assess our priorities in life. Already we’re urged to get out and spend, spend in order to re-ignite the big engines of the economy. Economic development, population growth, material
The Usefulness of the Useless by Nuccio Ordine Read More »
02 June 2020. There has been a lot of crying recently. The pandemic of 2020 has released a flood of emotion. Many TV viewers also, during the lockdown in April and May, have admitted to weeping over the BBC Three drama ‘Normal People‘ (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p089g8rs/normal-people) The memory of having being young once, in love, and the
Weeping Britannia by Thomas Dixon Read More »
It’s 25th May 2020 and we’re into a tenth week of lockdown confinement in Scotland, attempting to slow down the spread of Covid-19. The natural world, meanwhile, is indifferent to human trauma and is as lively this Springtime as any. One is minded of the fecundity referenced in Genesis 8:17 ‘Bring forth with thee every
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey Read More »
4th April 2020. We’re in the midst of the gravest health emergency any of us can remember. Hospitals around the world are filling up with people dying of the disease Covid-19. The UK economy has effectively been placed in a coma. To get an understanding of this contagion forget the conspiracy theories with which the
Plague’s Progress by Arno Karlen Read More »
Perhaps an uplifting novel would be suitable for the day we enter the calendar Spring 2020. Reach for The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty. (https://www.lauramoriartynovels.com/) Moriarty was born in Honolulu in 1970. She took a degree in social work, earned an MA in Creative Writing at The University of Kansas before becoming the recipient of the
The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty Read More »
Bill Bryson ( https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/101/1017933/bill-bryson.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson) is a well known and loved author in the UK. Born and brought up in Des Moines, Iowa, Bryson has made England his home for most of his adult life. He came to prominence in the UK with the publication of Notes from a Small Island (1995), an affectionate but satirically
The Body by Bill Bryson Read More »
Widespread rejoicing at the magnificent Tory landslide on 12th December 2019 has scarcely abated in Clydesdale during these last few days before Christmas. Epic drinking, feasting and splurges of spending have been bacchanalian. Champagne corks could be heard popping wildly in all the douce villages squatting like frogs around the foot of Tinto. Life can
Decline and Fail by John Crace Read More »
Such is the relentless commercialisation of Christmas as a winter festival that the tinsel and all other orgiastic necessities have been appearing for sale since September. By this measure we’re bounding close to the day of Christ’s Mass. ‘Tis the season in which neither Amazon’s little helpers nor their billions of gratified gift recipients have
A History of the Bible by John Barton Read More »
Margaret Atwood (http://margaretatwood.ca/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood) has been much in the news for her latest book ‘The Testaments’, the joint winner of The Man Booker Prize 2019. If you are new to this top rank author, I’d recommend Atwood at the height of her powers in her 1996 novel ‘Alias Grace’. There’s nothing like the spectacle of female
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood Read More »
Turbulent times stimulate vivid imaginations. With two egotistical buffoons (Trump and Johnson) proving every minute that they are catastrophically unfit for high office, tensions in the Middle East rising, Russia rattling its sabre, the Chinese building up massive armed forces, Islamic terrorists at large, Jerusalem re-established as the Capital of Israel, the environment trashed by
Living at the End of the World by Marina Benjamin Read More »
American novelist Dan Mallory (a.k.a. A. J. Finn) (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/15/unreliable-narrators-questions-the-truth-leo-benedictus) has a complex relationship with the truth according to recent reports. This notoriety has not prevented his 2018 thriller ‘The Woman in the Window’ becoming a bestseller. Thrillers have the capacity to absorb our attention, allowing us to forget, temporarily, the grim details of everyday life.
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn Read More »
It’s been hot in Scotland over these past days in July of 2019. ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/24/uk-records-hottest-day-of-year-and-could-hit-new-high-of-39c ) High temperatures of this sort in The Upper Ward induce a febrile and mordacious mood. So we can say our weather’s been nothing to do with with climate change or global warming. Nothing to do with human activity. Nothing
The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells Read More »
