In “Tamagotchi”, one of the short stories in Adam Marek’s second collection, The Stone Thrower, the narrator wonders “what kind of demented mind would create a child’s toy” that was capable of catching AIDS. Reading through whole collection, it is at times difficult not to wonder about the state of mind of the author himself. Read More
“I ran into an industrial estate and looked around, / the spikes got me.” Having self-published two pamphlets (softly softly catchy monkey and Sleeveless errand), and gained considerable performance experience both live and online, Emma Hammond offers her first full poetry collection, tunth-sk. The satisfyingly well-designed cover does not clarify the perplexing titular word (nor Read More
If I touched the Earth is Cynthia Rogerson’s fifth novel. The Canadian born author has lived in the UK for more than 30 years and boasts an impressive literary reputation as winner of the V.S. Pritchett Prize in 2008. Further boosting her popularity is the fact that, as a Scottish Book Trust Live Author, she Read More
Great Expectations focuses on the story of an orphan, Pip (Jeremy Irvine), who is thrust into the hectic and gritty world of Victorian London by an anonymous benefactor. I doubt I was the only person eager to see Irvine in Mike Newell’s adaptation following his powerful debut in War Horse last year. Before his world Read More
William Wall’s new collection, Ghost Estate, takes its title from lonely places: the large, half-finished ‘ghost estate’ housing schemes of Ireland. First started during the height of the Celtic Tiger Boom, the economic collapse left them as unfinished and largely uninhabited chilling and empty spaces. Wall mirrors these qualities here. His sentences are carefully minimalist; Read More
This collection of 12 short stories by the veteran Ghanian author Ama Ata Aidoo, reflects concerns with the displacement of people, particularly women, who move between two cultures: their African homeland and that of the developed world. Her work has inspired younger African authors such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who regards Aidoo as a mentor Read More
Take fourteen contemporary fiction writers and pair them with researchers working in diverse fields of bio-medical science; have the writers produce short stories dealing in the speculative ethical consequences of the research, from the utopian to the Frankensteinian; allow a dedicated researcher (or team of researchers) to respond to each story, highlighting technical details of Read More
In celebration of Book Week Scotland, the DCA held an exhibition of books, published ephemera and (maga)zines made by artists selected from, amongst others, the Heart Fine Art in Edinburgh, the DCA’s recent exhibitions programme and the Centre for Artists’ Books which is based in the Visual Research Centre in the building. Exhibiting books is Read More
Cedric Kahn’s Une Vie Meilleure (A Better Life) opens with Yann (played by the excellent Guillaume Canet) attending a disastrous job interview; he meets, and subsequently falls madly in love, with Nadia (Leïla Bekhti), a stunningly attractive young mother. The film follows this fairytale romance, with Yann quickly becoming a family man and taking on Read More
Following the success of The White Ribbon (2009), Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or-winning film, it is no great surprise that his recent film Amour was awarded the same honour at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Amour challenges the viewer to step away from mainstream film narratives and instead enter a much more rewarding, albeit demanding, introspective Read More