What does it say about our world that the fantasy genre is so much in the ascendant? Fiction, television and film are full of it. Has technology acted as a booster to the human imagination? Are everyday conditions so mundane that escapes into weird, wonderful and colourful worlds become irresistable? Whatever the answers to these questions Victoria […]
A Darker Shade of Magic Read More »
It takes some chutzpah to publish an autobiographical novel in 6 parts over 3,500 pages with the title ‘Min Kamp’ (Norwegian for ‘My Struggle’) with the obvious resonance of a darker figure from twentieth century history. Yet that is exactly what Karl Ove Knausgaard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Ove_Knausg%C3%A5rd) has done. In this 4th instalment – Dancing in the Dark – Knausgaard
Dancing in the Dark by Karl Ove Knausgaard Read More »
Harry Patterson (a.k.a. Jack Higgins) (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/cr-100380/jack-higgins) has been thrilling us now for 40 years since his breakthrough novel ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ in 1975. With 84 novels under his belt he resides in Jersey, Channel Isles where the climate is conducive, with over 2000 hours of sunshine per year. In this latest frontal lobe trembler, Sean Dillon
To play snooker at the highest level you would think you’d need an icy, ultra sober, ‘frame’ of mind. To execute shots with millimetre precision for hour after hour – well don’t you need to be someone like Steve Davis? Apparently not, because the sport has offered us wild and flamboyant characters. One was Alex
Jimmy White: Second Wind Read More »
David Lodge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lodge_(author) and http://literature.britishcouncil.org/david-lodge) novelist, English Literature Professor and literary critic offers a most interesting memoir here. One of the principal themes is inhibition, how you overcome it and the moral and practical consequences of that conquest – a sexual (and also a social and at times an intellectual) journey with, Lodge implies, many
Quite A Good Time to be Born: A Memoir: 1935-1975 Read More »
Harlan Coben (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_coben, http://www.harlancoben.com/) has a dedicated following. He is a New Jersey based writer of mystery and thriller novels. He won the 1996 Anthony Award in the “Best Paperback original” category for his début novel Deal Breaker, which also received an Edgar award nomination in the same category. Why not try his 2014 novel Missing You.
January can be a bit flat. The festive season recedes whilst debt obligations loom large. Whuppity Scourie seems depressingly distant. What you need is an escape of the thriller variety. Paula Hawkins delivers. The summary is as follows. Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past
The Girl on the Train Read More »
This Life follows the evolution of Dr David Livingstone’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone) aspirations from his childhood in Blantyre to his death beside a swamp in Central Africa, and finally to his posthumous apotheosis. The author conceals none of Livingstone’s blemishes whether in dealings with his wife and family or in his psychotic approach to those whom he felt had opposed,
Journey to Livingstone Read More »
Amazingly, it will soon be 4 years since the original publication on 11th June 2011 of Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. It was a publishing sensation, setting a record in the United Kingdom as the fastest-selling paperback of all time. Together with the second and third volumes, Fifty Shades Darker (2012) and Fifty Shades
