4th April 2020. We’re in the midst of the gravest health emergency any of us can remember. Hospitals around the world are filling up with people dying of the disease Covid-19. The UK economy has effectively been placed in a coma. To get an understanding of this contagion forget the conspiracy theories with which the […]
Plague’s Progress by Arno Karlen Read More »
Perhaps an uplifting novel would be suitable for the day we enter the calendar Spring 2020. Reach for The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty. (https://www.lauramoriartynovels.com/) Moriarty was born in Honolulu in 1970. She took a degree in social work, earned an MA in Creative Writing at The University of Kansas before becoming the recipient of the
The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty Read More »
Bill Bryson ( https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/101/1017933/bill-bryson.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson) is a well known and loved author in the UK. Born and brought up in Des Moines, Iowa, Bryson has made England his home for most of his adult life. He came to prominence in the UK with the publication of Notes from a Small Island (1995), an affectionate but satirically
The Body by Bill Bryson Read More »
Widespread rejoicing at the magnificent Tory landslide on 12th December 2019 has scarcely abated in Clydesdale during these last few days before Christmas. Epic drinking, feasting and splurges of spending have been bacchanalian. Champagne corks could be heard popping wildly in all the douce villages squatting like frogs around the foot of Tinto. Life can
Decline and Fail by John Crace Read More »
Such is the relentless commercialisation of Christmas as a winter festival that the tinsel and all other orgiastic necessities have been appearing for sale since September. By this measure we’re bounding close to the day of Christ’s Mass. ‘Tis the season in which neither Amazon’s little helpers nor their billions of gratified gift recipients have
A History of the Bible by John Barton Read More »
Margaret Atwood (http://margaretatwood.ca/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood) has been much in the news for her latest book ‘The Testaments’, the joint winner of The Man Booker Prize 2019. If you are new to this top rank author, I’d recommend Atwood at the height of her powers in her 1996 novel ‘Alias Grace’. There’s nothing like the spectacle of female
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood Read More »
Turbulent times stimulate vivid imaginations. With two egotistical buffoons (Trump and Johnson) proving every minute that they are catastrophically unfit for high office, tensions in the Middle East rising, Russia rattling its sabre, the Chinese building up massive armed forces, Islamic terrorists at large, Jerusalem re-established as the Capital of Israel, the environment trashed by
Living at the End of the World by Marina Benjamin Read More »
American novelist Dan Mallory (a.k.a. A. J. Finn) (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/15/unreliable-narrators-questions-the-truth-leo-benedictus) has a complex relationship with the truth according to recent reports. This notoriety has not prevented his 2018 thriller ‘The Woman in the Window’ becoming a bestseller. Thrillers have the capacity to absorb our attention, allowing us to forget, temporarily, the grim details of everyday life.
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn Read More »
It’s been hot in Scotland over these past days in July of 2019. ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/24/uk-records-hottest-day-of-year-and-could-hit-new-high-of-39c ) High temperatures of this sort in The Upper Ward induce a febrile and mordacious mood. So we can say our weather’s been nothing to do with with climate change or global warming. Nothing to do with human activity. Nothing
The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells Read More »
