This is a book I'd love everyone to read. Really. With its subtitle, ‘And How We Can Get There’, it offers hope for the future. Well written and, with forty pages of bibliography/research annotations, a book that has clearly been thoroughly researched. If you’ve reached that stage where you see a future for humanity in …
Continue reading Utopia for Realists, by Rutger Bregman, Reviewed.
Fantasy? Science Fiction? Magical Realism? This book is all of these. But it’s also a thoughtful, imaginative, and ultimately terrifying cross genre piece that stirs both emotions and ideas. We’re plunged into an undefined land, except that it must be the so-called civilised world, in an undeclared time, which must be the future. What is …
Continue reading Till They Dropped, by Sue Knight, Reviewed.
This is the sixth in an intermittent series of posts asking sometimes awkward questions. Some topics are trivial, some serious, and others vital. I’d love you to join in any ensuing debate using the comments at the foot of the post. Enjoy! Recently, my wife’s laptop mouse decided to play up; the scroll wheel sent …
Continue reading I’d Like to Know: Why? #6. Excess Packaging.
Cosy crime with dogs. Dogsbody is a Georgie Crane Comi-Crime novel by an author whose work I’ve always enjoyed. As usual, Karen Wolfe gives good value with plenty of laughs, a few deaths, and a romance that might or might not… For lovers of crime, this one will keep you turning the pages to find …
Continue reading Dogsbody, by Karen Wolfe, Reviewed.
The characters in this lengthy romance lead full and interesting lives. They’re an ethnically diverse group with a couple of the lead protagonists being West Indian. The narrative is set largely in New York and Canada and there are cultural references to these two countries that mean little to a UK reader who’s never visited …
Continue reading Letting Go, by Maria Thompson Corley, Reviewed.
This is a different type of thriller. Dealing with the murky lives of Mossad Agents, it follows the early career of Thomas Glaze, a young man totally deluded about his appeal to women, his ability in the field, and his tolerance for drugs and alcohol. Unsurprisingly, with such a catalogue of denial, he fails miserably …
Continue reading The Sweet Oil of Vitriol: A Tom Glaze Hit, by Daniel Eagleton, Reviewed.
Georgie Pattison sings again in this continuation of the amateur sleuth’s adventures. This is a heroine with all the self-doubt, anxieties and fears of any normal woman, but with the courage and sheer bloody-mindedness to find the truth. Justice matters to this lady and she’s willing to take personal risks to find it. Once again, …
Continue reading Laid in Earth, by April Taylor, Reviewed.
Subtitled, ‘23 tales of Wolds and rails’, this book of shorts contains a veritable trainload of charming stories. There are histories, romances, memoirs, ghosts, crime, and even some science fiction and fantasy displayed in this box of delights. Although each story has a different author, there’s unity of approach and style that makes the volume …
Continue reading Dreaming of Steam, An Anthology from Fantastic Books Publishing, Reviewed.
Poetry can be sublime, complex, evocative, tantalising, inspiring, provoking, sensual, thoughtful, engaging and many other things. AM Roselli’s poems manage to fit all these qualities. I first encountered AM’s remarkable poetry and artwork via her website, anntogether.com, to which I was directed by another friend online. I was engaged at once. This is a woman …
Continue reading love of the monster, by AM Roselli, Reviewed.
A very human story of one man’s relentless search for a way of life that will suit his view of what a man’s life should be. Culture, religion, philosophy and morality all impact on the story, which has a Muslim protagonist, Omar, living in India, where his beliefs are in the minority. There are lessons …
Continue reading The Polygamist, by William Irvine, Reviewed.
This surprising book exudes the author’s enduring sense of wonder and delight at the natural world. Such qualities, when demonstrated by a leading academic, who is also a well-loved and respected TV presenter, can motivate and inspire. I hope many non-scientists read this book. Not an ‘easy’ read, it demands attention and concentration. But it …
Continue reading Forces of Nature, by Professor Brian Cox, Reviewed.
Writing is such an odd occupation, requiring peculiar minds combined with unusual personalities. All writers are weird; that’s a given. We know we’re strange, some of us peculiar to the point of near insanity, others merely eccentric. We’re definitely an odd bunch. But there’s a strange beauty, a wonderful schizophrenia about writing, especially when the …
Continue reading Perils and Pleasures of Penmanship.
Help here for writers who want to make their work more accessible, interesting, varied, accurate and effective by using similar and dissimilar words. The series also provides language learners with some insights into the oddities of the English language. A good thesaurus provides alternatives for the idea of a word, but not all are true …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #33
What a tremendous book this is. Subtitled, ‘A Brief History of Tomorrow’, this follow-up to ‘Sapiens’ confirms the author’s mastery of deep research combined with an intelligence that permits him to see the world as a whole. I selected this book to read now as I’m at the initial editing stage of a science fiction …
Continue reading Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari, Reviewed.
This is the fifth in an occasional series of posts asking sometimes awkward questions. Some topics are trivial, some serious, and others vital. I’d love you to join in any ensuing debate using the comments at the foot of the posts. Enjoy! Why Don’t Cyclists Use Bells Anymore? Okay, this is trivial. But what’s the …
Continue reading I’d Like to Know: Why? #5 Cyclists
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Antidote to the Novel
Stuart Aken 