Christopher Brookmyre (http://www.brookmyre.co.uk/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Brookmyre) has won the The McIlvanney Prize – previously known as the ‘Scottish Crime Book of the Year’ – at the Bloody Scotland festival in Stirling (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-37323557). To see why this writer is so respected by other authors in the crime fiction field, and adored by a legion of fans, read his latest crime […]
Religion is an extremely complex social and cultural phenomenon. No simple definition can capture its manifold nature. Rich, simple, consoling, disturbing, unifying, divisive, colourful, austere, prayerful, practical, doctrinal, mystical, peaceful, militaristic, solitary, communitarian, supernatural, worldly. It has all of these (often contradictory) aspects. The very briefest attempt to get a conceptual handle on the phenomenon
A Little History of Religion by Richard Holloway Read More »
Tonight (Sunday 4th September 2016) sees the screening of the second series of the newly made Poldark historical drama on BBC TV. Many of us will remember the 29 episode TV adaptation with Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees which ran from 1975-1977. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075560/?ref_=nv_sr_2) Forty years on, and it’s Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson who are
Commuters in Clydesdale could be forgiven for thinking that the train service has gone a belly up in the last 18 months. Cancellations and delays have plagued the daily journey. If one is lucky, a seat and the opportunity to read a newspaper or novel whilst being conveyed to work are on offer. What one
A song lyric from a 1987 album by Sting could be the strapline for this book about science and the environment. ‘How fragile we are, How fragile we are’. More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates on the number of Earth’s current species
The World Without Us Read More »
For most of us who are not sadists, it is hard to understand how a human being can get pleasure from the acute suffering of another sentient creature. Worryingly, the personality trait has emerged throughout recorded history and exists in the present day. As you read this thousands of humans and other animals are being tortured.
Infamous Lady by Kimberly L. Craft Read More »
Racial tensions in America have not gone away 50 years after the Civil Rights Movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1954%E2%80%9368)), and there is much talk in the media and among pundits about the enduring legacy of slavery. The 2013 film 12 Years a Slave (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2024544/?ref_=nv_sr_2) was an adaptation of the 1853 slave narrative memoir by Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free African-American man who
Novelist Susan Barker (http://susanbarker.co.uk/about/) has gained an appreciative readership over the last 10 years. Her third novel is about a taxi driver in contemporary Beijing and is interwoven with tales from the Tang Dynasty, the invasion of Genghis Khan, the Ming Dynasty, the Opium Wars, and the Cultural Revolution. Whilst writing The Incarnations Barker spent several years
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’.
