The essay’s star is in the ascendant. While there has been a long—even noble—tradition of essay writing going all the way back to Montaigne’s Essais, many people associate essays with classroom forms of assessment. Yet, of late, more writers have felt emboldened to call their prose ‘essays’. Make it Scream, Make it Burn is a Read More
Motherwell is a poignant family portrait, articulately painted by the late Deborah Orr of a life with ‘house-proud’ mother Win and ‘factory-worker’ father John. Orr achieved success as a journalist, becoming editor of the Guardian’s Weekend supplement by 31, and writing a weekly column for two decades thereafter. She was also a child of Scottish Read More
Michelle Tea’s latest book, Against Memoir: Complaints, Confessions and Criticisms, turns the notion of the memoir on its head. Divided into three sections – ‘Art & Music’, ‘Love & Queerness’ and ‘Writing & Life’ – the essay collection paints a non-sequential picture of Tea’s life, layered under her musings and rants about other LGBT+ artists Read More
Do you ever read the last page of a book first? I don’t know why I did with this book, because I wouldn’t usually. Yet I am so glad I did. I know nothing about needlework but this is how the final paragraph begins, ‘Sewing is a way to mark our existence on cloth: patterning Read More
If the intriguing title of this book invites you to expect something different, then read on and you won’t be disappointed. Dame Professor Sue Black, as one of the country’s leading anatomists and forensic anthropologists, is no stranger to death; her thoughts on death and its inevitability, which has featured in both her personal and Read More
‘Courage calls to courage everywhere, and its voice cannot be denied.’ Celebrated author Jeanette Winterson takes the first phrase of Millicent Fawcett’s stirring words for the title of her work on the achievements of women since the 19th century. This diminutive book, developed from her 2018 Richard Dimbleby Lectures, appearing flyweight at less than A5 size and only Read More
Chris Arthur’s latest essay collection is unmistakably about hummingbirds. However, this innocuous fact is far more revealing than one might expect. Arthur’s hummingbirds are varied; sometimes they are avian, but they are also objects, words, creatures and people. To be a hummingbird is to capture the attention of the beholder and in doing so, challenge Read More
When Clare Best was asked by her dying father to help him write his memoir, she took the brave decision of using that process to examine her own, deeply painful past. By interweaving transcripts of interviews with her father, descriptions of cine films made by him and her own memories of events, The Missing List Read More
Picking up Paolozzi Revealed, I did expect a window into the private life of this creative titan. Instead, this summary of a Masterclass run by the renowned sculptor reads more like a research paper on creativity. But maybe that is indeed, in itself, revealing of Paolozzi, this book seemingly an embodiment of the creative process. In Read More
There are certain realities accessible only to a handful of people. Across 300 pages this book takes the reader to the unique reality of Scotland’s West Coast and offers a detailed account of life and culture in the region. However, as every reality, it’s not for everyone. Ian Stephen comes from the Isle of Lewis Read More