Following on from her previous novel The Midwife’s Daughter, Patricia Ferguson returns to the sleepy Cornish town of Silkhampton to tell the story of both new and also some familiar characters. Set in the early 1930s, the book revolves around three women, all widely different but drawn together by circumstance into a situation which will Read More
Lissa Evans’ fourth novel, Crooked Heart, brings to the table a new story with old bones. Set in World War 2 England, one would expect it to be another historical drama, rife with tales of heroism and loss, of tragedy and hope. As you traverse the pages however, you find humour in the place of Read More
“Hell is other people” Jean-Paul Satre’s famous words permeate the text of Emily St John Mandel’s fourth novel, Station 11, where a virus wiping out 99% of the Earth’s population leads its survivors to realise how alone in the world they can truly be. The story opens with a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear, starring Read More
“We flee like a dragonfly over water, we fight like ten guns, and we be bell to see. Other children go deranged and unpredictable for our love.” Longlisted for the 2015 Baileys’ Prize for Women’s Fiction, this is the third novel by Sandra Newman, who is American-born but resides in England. It may have missed Read More
While the idea of a post-humanist age is a recent concept, the relationship between the human and the natural world that emphasises the enormity, endurance and the significance of the latter isn’t. In Continental Drift, Nancy Gaffield explores the finite and the infinite, with humans beings in the former category and land belonging to the Read More
Bearing in mind the danger of conflating the experiences of an author with those represented in their work, it is striking that the first sentence on Grace McCleen’s website runs as follows: “Grace McCleen was raised in a fundamentalist religion and for most of her life did not have much contact with unbelievers.” Madeline, the Read More
The range of sculptural work on display at this year’s degree show is really exciting. Duncan of Jordanstone has, for the past few years, been a place where material tactility and critical thinking have blended to create some truly inspiring works, a place that challenges disciplinary conventions. At the beginning of your tenure in fine Read More
In an attempt to cover the impressive and wide variety served up to us at the glorious DJCAD 2015 Degree Show art buffet, examining Drawing and Painting as a section is in itself a purposely ambiguous task. Much as drawing does not necessarily consist of meticulously rendered pencil sketches on paper, some of the paintings Read More
The Animation department out-does itself this year. With work on display at the DJCAD Degree Show spread out over the lower half of the Cooper Gallery, the floor above and, most importantly, the Crawford Boardroom where the students’ final works play for the public to view, the department has this year allowed for more space Read More
Spread throughout the labyrinthine DJCAD buildings, printmaking is a quiet yet impressively employed practice in the ‘Fine Art’ degree show. From Abi Baikie’s layers of printed abstractions and painted figures to Guy Titterington’s screen printed palettes, almost all of the works manage print with poise. Down at the far end of the level five Fine Read More