This is a beautiful, if very unusual, book about life and the importance of stories and love. At its centre is an old, mouldy, ancient text supposed to have been written by Antonius Diogenes. The text came into being when Diogenes discovered, hidden in a chest in a tomb in Tyre, a strange anecdote about …
An easy-to-read page-turner, split between the past and the present, A Keeper fulfils many of the requirements of light, non-confronting literature. It does not have a deep message, and none of the characters are particularly well developed. It took me a few chapters to ‘get into’ this book. The introduction is interesting but not overly …
Elizabeth Zott is a scientist, unique (definitely ‘on the spectrum’) and driven. She resents the unequal world of the 1950s and the fact that her academic ambitions are thwarted by lecherous men in power who feel that a woman’s place is in the home, tending to the wants and needs of a husband. But …
This is the Bailey’s daunting account of their survival at sea after their yacht was sunk by a whale. With a raft and a dinghy and the few bits and pieces they were able to hastily gather together before their beloved Auralyn sank below the waves, Maurice and Maralyn drifted from somewhere north-east of the …
How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer the life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to …
The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex, UK, 2021 Motivated by the disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from the island of Eilean Mòr in 1900, The Lamplighters is an intelligent and beautifully written story. While being easy to read and a definite page turner it is still extremely thought provoking. Stonex manages to sustain the suspense until …
Windsor (Win) Horne Lockwood III is obscenely rich. He is also good looking. He is used to being able to do what he wants, when he wants, how he wants. It was difficult to get a picture of his actual position regarding the family’s business activities, but it was clear that the FBI found him …
Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth (…); in the …
When Holden Caulfield quotes Robert Burns as saying “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye” instead of saying “If a body meet a body coming through the rye”, he is, either consciously or subconsciously, describing his essence and, indeed, the very essence of the novel itself. He may appear unruly and undisciplined …
Pagford is a small rural village in west England where the inhabitants take pleasure in not being part of the nearby (much larger) town of Yarvil while being endlessly thankful that they are not like the residents of the Fields. The Fields, part of Pagford and halfway between Pagford and Yarvil, had once been included …