The advent of the First World War brought about the end of a whole way of life in the Scottish countryside that had persisted for perhaps a thousand years. With technological change picking up pace as well, the old patterns were swept away. It was a ‘sunset song’ for a harsh yet beautiful existence. In this novel of 1932 […]
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This is the 2012 offering of ‘chick lit’ purveyor Sophie Kinsella. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Kinsella) and (http://www.sophiekinsella.co.uk/) The summary goes as follows. Poppy Wyatt has never felt luckier. She is about to marry her ideal man, Magnus Tavish, but in one afternoon her ‘happily ever after’ begins to fall apart. Not only has she lost her engagement ring
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This is the first of Ellroy’s ‘L.A. Quartet’ – The Black Dahlia (1987), The Big Nowhere (1988) L.A. Confidential (1990), and White Jazz (1992). It’s Los Angeles 1947. Warrants Squad cops Bucky Bleichart and Lee Blanchard are called in to investigate the brutal murder of a beautiful young girl (christened ‘The Black Dahlia’ by the press) found
Penelope Fitzgerald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope_Fitzgerald) gives us a historical novel set in Germany at the very end of the eighteenth century. The Blue Flower (1995) is the story of the brilliant Fritz von Hardenberg, a graduate of the Universities of Jena, Leipzig and Wittenberg. He is learned in Dialectics and Mathematics, and later became the great romantic poet and philosopher
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John Updike’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike) most famous work is his Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom quartet Rabbit Run (1960); Rabbit Redux (1971); Rabbit is Rich (1981); and Rabbit at Rest (1990). ‘Rabbit’ is the nickname that American high school basketball star Harry Angstrom obtains as a youngster. The series chronicles the life of Harry over several decades from young adulthood
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Dostoyevsky’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dostoyevsky and http://www.fyodordostoevsky.com/) novel of 1880 is so profound it’s hard to summarise. The briefest of outlines would be that it concerns the murder of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a corrupt, loutish landowner, and the aftermath for his sons: the passionate Dmitri, the coldly intellectual Ivan, the spiritual Alexey, and the bastard Smerdyakov. The Brothers Karamazov is
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Lanark has more claim of importance in the life of William Wallace than Stirling. The local William Wallace Heritage Trust has long campaigned for more to be made of the connection. In this work Dr. James Mackay shares meticulous research on what can really be known about the man apart from the myth. Read this
Published in 1938 and set in London during the 1930s, this is a tale of innocence betrayed, of passion, misunderstanding and the emotional atrophy of grown-ups. When 16-year-old Portia comes to stay with her cool, elegant relations in Windsor Terrace overlooking Regent’s Park, she meets Eddie, an attractive young philanderer, and falls in love. Elizabeth
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Steven Pinker (http://stevenpinker.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker), Professor of Psychology at Harvard, is truly one of the big beasts of academia. One suspects that he must suffer from headaches because it seems he’s got six brains inside one skull. Not content to confine his research to learned journals Pinker has published, amongst other titles, The Language Instinct (1994),
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