A ghost moon… “You traced its outline, hardly daring to press your fingertip on the chill glass, afraid the sliver of unexpected light might melt to nothing at your touch.” Ron Butlin’s latest novel,Ghost Moon, takes its title from the phenomenon of the daytime moon, first observed by central character Maggie as she pushes her son, Read More
Computer generated art has the ability to leave spectators feeling disconnected with its cold and logical production. The connotations commonly associated with it are bound up in algorithms and technical jargon. William Latham’s exhibition, titled Mutator 2 challenges these stereotypes by combining the human body and the machine in an interactive approach. The VRC’s Centerspace, Read More
The Privilege of Rain tracks the year David Swann spent as Writer in Residence at HMP Nottingham in three parts: “Seed”, “Sap” and “Stump”. The irony of the prison’s setting, on land that once bore part of the wilds of Sherwood Forest, is utilised throughout as myriad themes associated with the prison system are addressed. Read More
Hebridean pastorale and tribute to the democratic nature of the Scottish state education system, wartime memoir and plea for the liberalisation of the Free Presbyterian Church, this story of a boy born in 1914 begins on an isolated croft in the Bays of Harris and ends with his appointment to the Chair of Practical Theology Read More
Think of your closest circle of friends. Think of how much time you spend in one another’s company. Think of how long you have been friends and how well you all get along. Now imagine that this group has cut you off. Completely. Without any explanation. You can’t think of any possible reasons as to Read More
Not only is Cry Uncle the first of Russel D. McLean’s novels I have read, it is also the first crime fiction I’ve read set in Dundee. Having previously turned away crime plots set locally, thinking that familiarity would somehow dampen the thrill associated with the genre, McLean surprises with his new novel, dragging me Read More
Reading a new book by an author whose work you have never encountered before is, in many ways, like meeting someone for the first time. We can certainly think of an author’s work as an extension of themselves where their thoughts, ideas, values and points of view are displayed. Just like many things in life, Read More
When Tim Clarkson writes of the Cumbrian people, he refers neither to the natives of Cumberland, nor modern Cumbria, but to the “North Britons” of the former kingdom of Strathclyde. From Govan, its cultural and political centre, the Cumbrian realm extended southward beyond the Solway Firth, leaving indelible marks that remain today. Clarkson’s latest offering, Read More
Boogeyman Dawn is hard reading; hard in the tradition of Alice Munro, of some of Toni Morrison, of what is often politely called “unflinching social realism”: about racism, sexual abuse, poverty, identity struggle. Raina Leon’s collection is about people whom poetry, more than prose, often disregards; it is concerned with suffering, which often also sits uncomfortably Read More
Outside Verdun is Fiona Rintoul’s translation of the German war classic Erziehung vor Verdun. It narrates the story of Private Bertin, a Jewish soldier who, following an act of compassion towards a French war prisoner, is ostracised by his anti-Semite superiors. As a consequence, he is buffeted between various danger zones on the western front, Read More