A Well Tempered Heart is a quirky, mesmerising novel on the theme of self-discovery. This spirited sequel to the award winning The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, might seem simply to be an easy contemporary read yet it possesses much deeper meaning. In Jan-Phillip Sendker’s new novel, Julia, despite being a successful Manhattan lawyer with prestige Read More
“I am sacred, comfort me.” Upon first glance, the opening statement of Frederick Lightfoot’s The Extinction of Snow might not amount to much; but you find yourself wondering what it means. As you progress to the subsequent paragraph, this ostensibly meaningless sentence suddenly seems harrowing as it is in actual fact the last sentence of Read More
We live in an age where women are no longer defined solely by their role as mothers, but whether by their presence or absence, children remain a conspicuous theme in many women’s life. Young girls know that the start of mensuration signals that they can have children. We relentlessly educate teenagers on avoiding teen pregnancy, Read More
In this recent graphic novel, the cream of British and European writers and artists have collaborated to explore life in Scotland thirty years into the future, with each paired writer and artist being given one chapter. The intricately detailed wraparound cover by Tom Kindley shows the flooded landscape of the Edinburgh of the future: the Read More
“Where is the land which has neither arms, money, care, physic, politics, nor taxes?” asked Lachlan Maclean in 1838; “that land is St Kilda”. Whether socialist, anarchist, noble savage, or beggar, the natives of this most remote Hebridean archipelago have almost invariably been ill-represented in literature, cast variously as semi-mystical beings or as peoples uncorrupted Read More
There is a quiet, yet brutal authority to David Harsent’s latest collection, although to categorise the book as mere poetry might do the collection and the writer a considerable disservice. Fire Songs stands alone as a unique beast, which harks back to the verse masters of the past; it is even reminiscent of Milton’s later works. Stealthily, the poet Read More
Ruth Padel’s latest collection, shortlisted for the Eliot Prize, Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth is a book “of the book” in that it draws on narratives from Christianity, Islam and Judaism to comment on our “crossing this desert of life” (“Extract from the Travels of Ibn Jubayr”). The poems are finely wrought pieces Read More
A little passage in Albert Camus’ The Plague has always haunted me. It concerns the difficulty of conveying grief in the very personal way that loss is felt and mourned. In these circumstances, words fall short so that “the current coin of language”, the “commonplaces” and “set phrases of ordinary conversation” must suffice, and failing Read More
Mary Costello’s debut novel Academy Street is an excellent follow up to her acclaimed collection of short stories, The China Factory, in 2012. The novel details the quiet and somewhat unremarkable life of Tess Lohan, beginning in 1940’s rural Ireland and expanding to the bustle of New York later, spanning seven decades in total. From Read More
Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk is no ordinary memoir. But then buying a goshawk as a fledgling, raising it in a front room and training it to hunt wild game is no ordinary pastime. Part grief memoir, part nature study, part biography of the writer T.H.White, the book cannot be classified into any one Read More