Sylvia Patterson’s I’m Not with the Band describes a three-decade long love affair with music. The esteemed journalist’s turbulent life is set against the highs and eventual lows of pop music and the media business she worked in. Her writing, like her first job in music journalism, magazine Smash Hits, mixes silly anecdotes (the favoured Read More
Any number of books and histories have been written about Queen Elizabeth and her reign. Several well-received films about her which have also explored aspects of her reign. So you might be forgiven in thinking John Guy is re-covering a well-researched topic. He explains what sets Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years apart when he declares, “I Read More
Kate Tempest’s latest publication, Let Them Eat Chaos, comprises of a single long-poem which winds its way through seven individuals’ lives, each at 4:18am in London. On the title page there is a short and simple disclaimer: “This poem was written to be read aloud”. As a reader, you may have a nagging feeling that Read More
The audience at The Rep looked to be squirming as tens of children jumped, wiggled and waved, and agitated in their seats. Each one of them sits by a parent in a Santa hat, a caregiver with a face painted to look like an elf, or a grandparent with tinsel around their necks that leave Read More
Alan McKirdy’s first claim in Set in Stone is: “I am a geologist by accident rather than by design!” A happy accident, as it turns out, as McKirdy’s enthusiasm shines through in his book. Set in Stone is an attractive study of Scotland’s geology for several reasons. The most obvious of these reasons is the Read More
Jacqueline Saphra’s If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women is a collection of eighteen entertaining prose poems that weave together several stories recounted from the narrator’s childhood. Saphra’s absorbing and entertaining words paired with Mark Andrew Webber’s captivating illustrations make for an enchanting small book, plunging readers into a world Read More
This debut work of non-fiction has already received widespread critical acclaim – this year, it was shortlisted for the Wellcome Prize, and won the Wainwright Golden Beer Prize. As The Outrun is a memoir of Liptrot’s slide into alcoholism, and her efforts to remain sober by returning to the place of her birth and raising, Read More
It’s sad when a word is poisoned by history. The word I’m thinking of is “collaboration.” Is it possible to wash off the wartime smear of sleaze and shame that this perfectly good word has acquired? What it describes really is something to be proud of, requiring both a clear personal voice and a generosity Read More
Get rid of words and meaning, and there is still poetry. Yang Wanli (1127-1206) Firstly, Newcastle University and Bloodaxe Books must be congratulated for instigating and publishing this innovative series of lectures. Quantum Poetics gathers three given by former Welsh National Poet Gwyneth Lewis. Though highly engaging and accessible, these are not for the dabbler. Read More
Philip Gross dealt with death and ageing in his 2013 collection, Later, and with elemental forces in the T.S. Eliot Prize winning The Water Table, published in 2009. Love Songs of Carbon unites these interests in an extended contemplation of the molecule as the building block of life. In Love Songs, the ageing process is Read More