Nell Freudenberger (https://nellfreudenberger.net/about/) is a young novelist from New York, living in Brooklyn. Her fiction has been receiving much praise recently. You may wish to see if the Lanark cognoscenti think it’s justified. Her 2019 novel Lost and Wanted is a thoughtful and entertaining tale about friendship, and the forces which both bind and […]
Lost and Wanted by Nell Freudenberger Read More »
Robert Macfarlane (https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/people/Robert.Macfarlane/ ) and (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Macfarlane_(writer)) has won more literary prizes than he can shake a stick at. His central theme is the relationship, and mutual shaping forces, between humans and the natural world. Notable works are Mountains of the Mind (2003), The Wild Places (2007), The Old Ways (2012), Landmarks (2015) and The Lost Words (2017). Underland is
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Josephine Cox (http://www.josephinecox.com/) has a lot to smile about. Having sold over 15 million copies of her heartwarming fiction, this saga author has made a fortune and brought joy to countless readers.(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/fameandfortune/5131523/Josephine-Cox-fameand-fortune.html) Many believe the acme of her artistic achievement to have been Jessica’s Girl (1993), a novel of such staggeringly formulaic conformity as
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There has been a long standing tension within religious outlooks over the centuries. This is between embracing the world and denying it. Ascetics within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam consider the world corrupted and tainted with sin, that it is literally and spiritually filthy. It makes perfect sense on this account to detach oneself, live in
A Decent Life by Todd May Read More »
Familiar genres of fiction such as historical, adventure, romance, and crime are being supplemented by new categories. This is presumably because there is no escape from the marketing drive towards ‘product development’, nor an end to the ceaseless human desire for novelty. Recent examples have been ‘chick lit’ to satisfy young female interest, and ‘misery
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin Read More »
Of all the species known to have existed on planet Earth, 99% are now extinct. and (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/extinction/massext/statement_03.html) There is no adequate reason to believe our species will defy the odds. Humans will suffer extinction either by environmental catastrophe, global pandemic, asteroid (or similar) impact, substitution by artificial intelligence or self destruction. Two recent books make
Vices of the Mind by Quassim Cassam Read More »
Sometimes a modern fiction title emerges which generates more than the standard publisher hype. Some alchemy is at work in the application of critical appraisal upon popular taste and word-of-mouth recommendation. With the title’s reputation established, literary types suffer unease, if not shame, for having not read these acclaimed works. Examples are: Orlando (1928) by
The Wych Elm by Tana French Read More »
Jane Harper (http://janeharper.com.au/Books) has followed up the success of her first two novels The Dry (2017), and Force of Nature (2018) with this crime thriller published in February 2019. A summary of The Lost Man is as follows. Two brothers meet at the remote border of their vast cattle properties under the scorching sun of the Australian
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Matt Haig (http://www.matthaig.com/) has a broad range of literary output across adult fiction and non fiction, children’s literature, young adult vampire novels, and a candid autobiographical account of fighting depression ‘Reasons to stay alive’. In 2017 Haig offered this uplifting tale ‘How to stop time’. Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like
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We have somehow drifted into an intellectual culture in which anybody’s opinion is as good as anyone else’s. Partly this is about the availability of platforms to shout your mouth off. Billions of social media posts, e-mails, snapchat, video clip contents, and web page opinions are washing around the globe as an ocean of irrational
Post Truth by Evan Davis Read More »
We look around Lanark at Christmas 2018. Perhaps we assume that our local amenities and quality of life is a simple given, inevitable, all that can be expected. Notwithstanding the heroic efforts of The Lanark Community Development Trust, however, it’s a largely deteriorating picture. The disgrace of a rotting hotel at Lanark’s centre presents an
Moneyland by Oliver Bullough Read More »
There can hardly have been more saturation coverage in the British media than that over Brexit. Every minute aspect of this awful car crash is analysed to death on a daily basis. It now seems unstoppable that on 29 March 2019 The United Kingdom will divorce itself from The European Union. We still don’t know
A Short History of Europe Read More »
For many years Andrew Greig (https://andrew-greig.weebly.com/biography.html) saw the poet Norman MacCaig (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/norman-maccaig) as a father figure. Months before his death, MacCaig’s enigmatic final request to Greig was that he fish for him at the ‘Loch of the Green Corrie’; the location, even the real name was mysterious. His search took in days of outdoor living,
At the Loch of the Green Corrie by Andrew Greig Read More »
Val McDermid (https://www.valmcdermid.com/) has established a loyal readership for her crime fiction over the last 31 years since the publication of her first novel in 1987. In a Radio 4 broadcast of 23 September 2018 (‘A Point of View‘ – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bkpszm) she argued that crime fiction is not predominantly about murder or the grisly details
The latest outpouring of resentment and anger happens to be in Chemnitz in eastern Germany (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fear-and-loathing-in-neo-nazi-chemnitz-cvzmw52fx), but it’s only an example of what’s cropping up all over the world. In this case, something truly horrible – the resurrection of the fascist far right in Germany – should set all sorts of alarm bells ringing. What
