2017 will be a significant year for readers of history, particularly religious history. It will be 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Church door at Wittenberg in Saxony. For convenience, the event in 1517 is taken to be the start of what came to be known as ‘The Protestant Reformation’. […]
Navigating through human life is, as we all realise, a tricky business. One of the persistent suspicions that may beset us is that people are not all they seem. They may be offering us a persona which conceals hidden motives, desires, tastes, values etc. How well do you really know those that are closest to
As our knowledge of the natural world deepened from the mid nineteenth century onward it became increasingly implausible to think that humans were in any sense unique or special. Features that had been offered as uniquely human were complex communication, social organisation, capacity for suffering, personality and empathy. These are all now known to be
Fancy a holiday in Cyprus? A holiday in the imagination which does not involve that early morning trip to the airport or any of the disagreeable hassle of travel? Take flight instead with the latest novel by Irish writer Lucinda Riley (http://www.lucindariley.com/home/4591002983). The Olive Tree will transport you to the Eastern Mediterranean from your armchair
In the dappled late May sunshine of South Lanarkshire, it may just be possible to detect the live murmur of a summer’s day. Your day will not be out of the ordinary. In the background the servants are busy with their morning tasks, and the clatter of pots and pans drifts over the policies to
The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, edited by Philip Hensher Read More »
On 23rd June 2016 the British electorate voted for the country to leave the European Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum,_2016. Votes for ‘Brexit’ were concentrated in certain regions and in certain social classes. Scotland largely voted to remain. The day was the culmination of about 12 weeks of saturation debate, claim, counter claim, lies, distortion, exaggeration, scaremongering, passionate
Sovereignty by Francis Hinsley Read More »
Graham Swift is an English novelist who has been influenced by the magic realism of Borges, Marquez and Grass. His successful fiction Last Orders and Waterland have both been filmed. He has been the winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, The James Tait Black Memorial Prize and The Booker Prize. In Mothering Sunday, Swift takes
For my money, June is the finest month. The promise of summer flames out, like shining from shook foil (thank you Gerard Manley Hopkins, (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44395) . Before 9.00 am, heat can stack up into a lazy stillness so that one can happily take morning coffee in the back garden. What mostly makes the month such a ravishing
Six Facets of Light by Ann Wroe Read More »
Novelist Mark Billingham (https://www.markbillingham.com/) writes crime thrillers. He also works as a television screenwriter and has become a familiar face as an actor and stand up comedian. Billingham created Detective Inspector Tom Thorne for his 2001 debut novel Sleepyhead, where a case of locked-in syndrome reveals the dark depths of a twisted mind, as adept at toying
