Simple stories are sometimes the most appealing ones. Love, trying to fit in or to find oneself are examples of themes present not only in Akhil Sharma’s short story collection, but also in the everyday lives of most people. However, these topics are also painfully commonplace in art and culture, and thus often feel cliched Read More
The suburbs of an unknown town seem to be as ordinary as it gets. The only thing making these places unique is that in every house there is a room reserved for the president. Nobody can use it and it has to be maintained to the highest standard at all times, for the visits are Read More
Bone Deep is a taut, psychological thriller which cleverly threads themes of love, betrayal and revenge through parallel stories. The title, like that of Sandra Ireland’s debut novel, Beneath the Skin, conveys her fascination with the inner world: what compels people to act, and how their actions subsequently affect their psyche. Mac, a retired academic, suffering Read More
To say that Dundee has had a lot going on of late would be a gross understatement. There have been Penguin Parades, new festivals springing up, an influx of performances from the country’s top musical acts and yes, that iconic building by the waterfront. But lodged into the spaces in-between these significant events is ‘The Read More
There are times when life throws us into trying situations that isolate us from the understanding of others. In 2014 Gordon Meade was diagnosed with cancer. In his 9th poetry collection he takes the reader on a full tour of the battlefield – from the diagnosis to the battle itself and finally, its positive verdict. Read More
The story of George Washington Black is told in the first person by Esi Edugyan’s protagonist of the same name in her Man Booker shortlisted novel. Starting as an eleven-year-old field slave in Faith Plantation in Barbados in 1830, the conditions of his slave life in the harsh setting of the sugar plantation is perhaps Read More
In June 2018 I interviewed Philip Lopate, who is probably the most famous living essayist in the world. On camera.* It was something I’d never done before, and to say I was nervous is an understatement. I shook hands with him the day before and heard him deliver his keynote for the ‘Taking ideas for Read More
cos cheum nach gabh tilleadh For some, Robin Robertson’s book-length narrative poem is “unclassifiable”. Shortlisted for awards invariably dominated by prose, it is epic in both scale and ambition. Resisting the strict fit of epic form, its protagonist (the aptly-named Walker) is overly human for deification; its netherworld trips, earthly hells. Remembered paradises are also Read More
The Overstory is about trees. There’s more to it, but trees (‘The most wondrous products of four billion years of life’) are at its core. The novel casts no illusions about its focus or its intent, leading the reader into a sublime wander through forests and parks, building rage at the injustice meted out to Read More
A novel’s first line is crucial. George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) begins, “It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992) begins, “The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of Read More