This book by Annie E. Proulx (Annie Proulx: ‘I’ve had a life. I see how slippery things can be’ | Annie Proulx | The Guardian) follows the movements of a small green accordion. The accordion maker leaves his native Sicily with his son Silvano in 1890 for ‘La Merica’. The promise of the land of […]
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If perspicacity and foresightedness are criteria for the greatness of a narrative then ‘Fahrenheit 451‘ by Ray Bradbury (Ray Bradbury – Books, Short Stories & Quotes) stands tall. First published in 1953 the author imagines a dystopian future in which a totalitarian state has prohibited books and reading. The populace is driven into conformity by
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John and Laura Baxter are recovering from the death of their daughter Christine from meningitis in the 1950s when they take a trip to Venice. At a restaurant table they encounter a pair of Scottish spinster twins. One of these, Heather, is a seer and informs Laura that a little girl has been sitting alongside
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In 2002 Sarah Waters (Sarah Waters | Hachette UK) offered us Fingersmith, a neo-Victorian novel. The setting is London, 1862. Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, grows up among petty thieves – ‘fingersmiths’ – under the rough but loving care of Mrs Sucksby and her ‘family’. But from the moment she draws breath, Sue’s fate is
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James Robertson (A life in writing: James Robertson | Books | The Guardian) has a special connection to Clydesdale. From 1993 to 1995 he was the first writer in residence at Hugh MacDiarmid’s house at Brownsbank, Candymill near Biggar. Robertson has gone on to publish several novels, short stories and poetry collections. He was born in Sevenoaks, Kent
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Philip Miller (PHILIP MILLER | Writer and Poet (philipmillerbooks.com)) is a writer and poet living in Edinburgh. He was an award-winning arts journalist for 20 years, and his published novels include The Goldenacre (2022), All The Galaxies (2017) and The Blue Horse (2015). His poetry has been published in print and online, and he received a RL Stevenson Fellowship in 2019.
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Marilynne Robinson (Appreciation: Marilynne Robinson, Novelist and Essayist, is an American Original — The National Book Review) is an American novelist and essayist. She has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. Robinson began teaching at the Iowa
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Kevin Barry is an Irish writer born in 1969. He is the author of three collections of short stories and three novels. City of Bohane was the winner of the 2013 International Dublin Literary Award. Beatlebone won the 2015 Goldsmiths Prize. This 2019 novel, Night Boat to Tangier, was longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. Barry is also an editor of Winter Papers, an arts and culture annual.
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Robin Robertson (Robin Robertson – Poet) was brought up on the north-east coast of Scotland. After taking degrees in Scotland and Canada he moved to London to work in publishing, for Penguin, Secker & Warburg and Jonathan Cape. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Robertson’s books of poetry are A Painted Field (1997), Slow Air (2002), Swithering (2006), The Wrecking
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