July 2013

Interested in sex? No? OK, you need not read this recent history of social attitudes towards the grisly function. Philip Larkin famously wrote in ‘Annus Mirabilis’ Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) – Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles’ first LP.  The observation is both

Written by an anonymous English monk during the late fourteenth century, The Cloud of Unknowing is a sublime expression of what separates God from humanity and is widely regarded as a hallmark of Western literature and spirituality.  It stands in the tradition of the ‘Via Negativa’. This suggests that one must give up all conceptual

Le Grand Meaulnes is a modern French classic. François Seurel, the narrator, is the son a village schoolmaster in the Sologne, a region of lakes and sandy forests in North Central France. A new boy Augustin Meaulnes, who comes from a poor background, arrives in class but soon disappears. Later he returns from an escapade

American thriller writer Clive Cussler (http://clive-cussler-books.com/) has seen over 50 titles published under his name. He has had 17 consecutive titles reach The New York Times fiction best seller list. His fiction leans toward the fantastical and glamorous and is powerfully plot driven. In this outing of 2012 we are introduced to the greatest advance in American defense

Ever since the publication of Bravo Two Zero in 1993 SAS Sergeant Andy McNab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_McNab) has had an ardent following for the gritty realism of his military action thrillers. The gripping 2012 follow-up to the bestselling War Torn has the following synopsis. Writing with Kym Jordan, Andy McNab has created a stunning sequel to his bestselling novel

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man This is Joyce’s semi-autobiographical portrait of his alter ego Stephen Dedalus as he struggles free from his Irish Catholic heritage and of his eventual abandonment of Ireland. The portrait begins with Stephen as a young child, listening to the talk around the dinner table of Irish

The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age  The Professor of Human Biology at Stanford (http://nathanwolfe.net/) tells a chilling tale. The virus has probably been around since the evolution of the first cell. This is a teensy bit longer than humans have been around. Three and a half billion years longer, actually. So

Scotland’s own Val McDermid writes what has become known as ‘Tartan Noir’. Some of her offerings are seriously not for the faint hearted. They hover, with lovingly painted detail, over graphic scenes of violence and torture. For a gentle introduction to her oeuvre try The Last Temptation. The plot goes as follows. A twisted killer

A memoir hovers over the pre-occupations of its author in contrast to an autobiography which attempts something more structured and comprehensive. Lorna Sage’s pre-occupation here is the thought that children carry, like an imprinted curse, the full range of the joy and angst of their forebears.  Rather than develop from a freshly minted individual Sage had

In Mike Leigh’s wonderful film Secrets & Lies the audience is gradually shown all the ‘unknown knowns’ (to use a phrase of Donald Rumsfeld’s) which have been hidden from the characters. It’s a disconcerting thought that there may be dozens of truths about our circumstances of which we are blissfully unaware, many of a personal

Prolific Lee Child (http://www.leechild.com/) struck again in 2012 with another Jack Reacher adventure. Jim Grant (the author’s true name) was actually born in Coventry but manages to set his yarns convincingly all over America. Child has a huge and enthusiastic following. If you’ve never been tempted by a thriller this is as good as any. The brief summary