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 …
I was in two minds about this book. The title – The Woman in the Window – and the fact that the book was written in the first person from the woman’s point of view, led me to believe that A.J.Finn was a woman. However, a few chapters into the book, I began to wonder …
Sitting awkwardly somewhere between a memoir and a teaching manual, Bush School tells of O’Brien’s appointment to the small New England school of Weibonga in 1960 when he was twenty. The blurb on the front cover claims that he was ‘fresh out of college’, but prior to his country appointment he taught for two years …
A book about domestic violence seen through the eyes of the victim’s mother, Miriam. Miriam is both aware and not aware of what is going on, and although Caro is presenting domestic violence from the perspective of a third person, her main focus is on the unconditional love of a mother for her child. Without …
In The Dig, Preston tells the story of the discovery and the excavation in 1939 of one of the most important archaeological finds in the UK. The mound, at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, revealed itself to be the resting place of a ship from the Anglo-Saxon period and was eventually dated to 500-600 AD. The …