Merman opens with the obliquely powerful titular poem (an Arvon International Poetry Award winner 2010), justifiably described by the Poet Laureate as “wonderful”. Indeed, it is the outstanding poem in this excellent, multi-layered collection – O’Brien’s fourth. The cover representation of her post-Arvon collaboration with visual artist, Ray Murphy, weights that single poem still more. Read More
Nicola White saw off over 350 other authors to win the 2013 Dundee International Book Prize with her debut novel, In the Rosary Garden. Based upon a notorious case of infanticide in Ireland in the 1980s, and set predominantly in White’s home town of Dublin, the plot centres on Alison Hogan or Ali for short. Read More
Fans of White Teeth will find much to satisfy them in Zadie Smith’s latest work. Weaving together three narratives Smith once again proves her skill at describing a moment and a place in time, in all its inherent beauty and ugliness. Centred on London’s Kilburn area and the Caldwell estate, the story is told through Read More
Mary Modeen’s latest print exhibition, The Absolutely Other, removes the observer from their immediate surroundings and deposits them in a curious version of the visual world they inhabit. Modeen’s enduring interest in space and the way we relate to it is worked through here in terms of the uncanny. Recognizable spaces jostle with others that Read More
Despite my admiration for his style and wit, even I can admit that many of Wes Anderson’s films have rough edges. Sheer narrative drops trip you into ridges in the mind of the filmmaker that sometimes feels too personal, while jarring stalagmites can obstruct your understanding of the presence and truth of the story. Anderson Read More
Rebecca Miller’s latest novel would be as well titled Jacob’s Feast as Jacob’s Folly; so voracious is the author’s appetite for detail and the narrator’s lust for experience. Born into a poor family of Jewish peddlers in eighteenth century Paris, Jacob Cerf breathes his last while contemplating the pooling rivulets of wax on an ornate, Read More
Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, a novella about an early 20th-century logger and bridge builder in the northwestern United States, has garnered rave reviews from publications such as The Scotsman, The Observer, and The New York Times. Its straightforward, even stilted, prose imitates the hapless career of the orphaned Robert Granier. Robert grows up north of Read More
Bhalla Strand is a structurally complex novel, set across two different historical periods (1910 and 2010), utilising a number of different narrative voices and elaborating on several themes. At its heart, however, is a relatively simple romantic tale – or rather, two tales, linked by a fictional Scottish island which in itself forms one of Read More
21 Revolutions was commissioned to mark the first two decades of Glasgow Women’s Library. It features the work of 21 visual artists and 21 writers, each inspired by items from the Library’s rich collection of artefacts, books and art. Despite its size (and price!), it’s no mere coffee-table bagatelle. On the contrary, 21 Revolutions Read More
In 1814 Pierre-Simon Laplace wrote the first published statement of what is known as causal determinism. This is the idea, in general terms, that every event is necessarily caused by previous events and conditions in accordance with established laws. Though this deterministic view has its precedents in Ancient Greek philosophy, Laplace’s formulation places it in Read More