Posted in Entries by Emma, Fiction: children's, Fiction: general, Fiction: historical, Fiction: literary, Fiction: young adult, Uncategorized, tagged Emma Darwin, Antonia Forest, children's fiction, young adult fiction on July 10, 2008 | 22 Comments »
Perhaps it was inevitable that Antonia Forest should go out of fashion for a while. When you were born in 1915, put life on hold for war work, have your first novel published in 1948, and take the rest of a long life to write eight books about the same family, two books about their [...]
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My mother passed this book to me after a friend recommended it to her. I admit I was wary about reading The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency as I’d heard there was some controversy about the Botswana-based novel, and I remember Susan Hill being informed that the book had patronising and possibly racist undertones. And yet [...]
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I am reviewing Restoring Grace - rather than one of Fforde’s more recent novels, or the brand new Wedding Season (which I am yet to get my sticky fox paws on) - partly out of necessity. The bulk of my own library and I have… geographical issues right now, and there’s no handy English [...]
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I’m sure most of you will have heard of this charming little book already. I certainly had - so many times and from so many sources that I doubt I’d have written about it at all, if a review copy hadn’t mysteriously ended up in my letterbox. I shrugged the mystery away, opened the book out [...]
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I am of two, very divided minds about this book. It is the story of Henry Powell who is blamed for a tragic family accident which occured when he was seven. He grows up to become a talented football player in his teens which earns him a scholarship to college. However, under pressure from his [...]
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The Ossians are the loud-and-proud Scottish indie band comprised of drug-addled frontman Connor, his twin sister Kate, his girlfriend Hannah and his mate Danny. The novel follows The Ossians on a tour of various grubby backstreet pubs around the Scottish coast. The band’s name is a reference to a third century bard who did not [...]
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Whenever I read a Peter Carey novel, I know there’s going to be unusual characters, whose quirks can be aggravating or endearing. And all of those uncomfortable moments in life will be scrutinized and reverberate. There will be metaphors,too, at once amusing and poetic. This time it’s: the crushed-glass stars spilling across the cooling [...]
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As part of our ‘Wilderness Week‘ series:
Sylvanus Now is a fisherman, living in Newfoundland in the 1950s, ‘poor at book learning’, but who knows and loves this savage sea and land. ‘Undoubtedly, as a feathered creature shapes and grows into its habitat, so was he woven into the fabric of this land.’ One evening, [...]
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Posted in Entries by Mary, Fiction: general, Fiction: literary, Uncategorized, tagged environment, Scotland, Scottish Literature, forests, Highlands, paganism, Christianity on April 18, 2008 | 8 Comments »
Part of Scottish Literature Week
The Last Bear, Mandy Haggith’s debut novel, is set 1000 years ago in the remote northwest Highlands of Scotland and tells the story of the death of the last remaining bear to live in the wild in Scotland.
The bear in question is female and wanders through the forest in vain [...]
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The Time Traveler’s Wife is the debut novel of Audrey Niffenegger published in 2004 which went on to become a phenomenal bestseller, exceeding all expectations of the publisher and the writer. Not only has the book succeeded in terms of sales (with many millions of copies sold, although I’m not sure exactly how many) but [...]
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