In her grand work, The Invention of Nature, Andrea Wulf sets out to restore Alexander von Humboldt (b. 1769) to his rightful place in the pantheon of scientific greats. By introducing the worldview that “nature is a living whole”, a “web of life”, and that man – through deforestation, farming and industrial practices – was Read More
From one son of Dundee to another, Don Paterson, allow me to commend this finely wrought collection – it pulls off something quietly virtuoso that reads keen, true and varied. I sensed something redeeming and intimate about this work, so forgive me if I contrive this review as something like an open letter. This does Read More
At Hawthorn Time is a narrative of belonging and identity, wrapped up in an elegiac homage to the natural world. It is the second novel of Melissa Harrison, a freelance writer and occasional photographer who lives in South London. She won the John Muir Trust’s ‘Wild Writing’ Award in 2010 and was a Writer In Residence at Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden, in January Read More
War and its losses are never far from the surface in Brian Johnstone and Chrys Salt’s mixed media performance The Fields of War. Breaking through in powerful human expressions of anguish and outrage, the poets assume voices from across a century of fighting – the soldier returning in peacetime, the bomber pilot surveying his target, Read More
Tasha Kavanagh has previously published a number of children’s books, and judging by the tone and point of view of her first novel, Things We Have In Common, she is still drawn to that genre. Indeed, the subject matter here places this debut adult work into that crossover space shared by adult and ‘young adult’ Read More
Vibrating, pulsating, claustrophobic: words that may spring to mind were you to find yourself stuck in a working database. Though this is an experience unlikely to present itself, Small Gate, Infinite Field, an exhibition by Glasgow artist Christopher Macinnes, comes as close as it may be possible to get. But database like or not, Read More
James Lee and Natasha Dijkhoff are both graduates of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. They both live and work in Dundee – James is the Gallery Manager at Meadow Mill Wasps Studios and Natasha is a printmaking technician at Dundee University. Both artists, it seems, share a love of shapes and texture, but they Read More
This is the first novel by Welsh author, Kate Hamer, who previously won the Rhys Davies short story award in 2011. The first thing that strikes is the novel’s title. Any reference to a girl in a red coat evokes the apparition of the child in Nicolas Roeg’s acclaimed film of 1973, ‘Don’t Look Now’, Read More
“When a thing has always been forbidden and must live in darkness and silence, it’s hard to know what it might be, if allowed to thrive.” Patrick Gale’s talent for creating sympathetic characters who survive in dire circumstances is at its best in A Place Called Winter, his most recent novel, set in Edwardian England Read More
Neil Rollinson has published three collections of poetry before Talking Dead, and is a past recipient of a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors. He has also garnered a reputation for being polemical. His case is arguably quite similar to that of Henry Miller, who is often misinterpreted as a misogynist purveyor of smut. Read More