Every story begins in mystery. When we first sit down to read, the characters are strangers to us; events are yet to unfold. The weight of the unread pages rests comfortably in our hand: a promise of things to come. Few stories end with as many mysteries as they begin with, and fewer still with Read More
Jim C Wilson’s pamphlet, Will I Ever Get To Minsk? packs in poems in a variety of forms, from sonnet and cinquain to triolet and villanelle, and covering a range of material from ekphrastic poems, celebrations of writers, McCaig, Tranter and George Bruce, and poems about childhood experiences. There’s a wit and lightness of Read More
If there was ever a poetry book that felt like a workout, this would be it. I don’t mean workout in the sense of a laborious or stressful task, but as a highly stimulating read. Mark Goodwin’s House At Out exercises the mind in every sense of the word. Mark Goodwin is a poet and Read More
IT, USA, 2017 It’s been twenty-seven years since IT’s predecessor haunted the silver screen: uncanny coincidence, or deliberate marketing ploy for a story about a monster known to resurface every twenty-seven years? Either way, Andy Muschietti’s interpretation of Stephen King’s 1986 horror novel presents a nostalgic reinvention of an iconic cult classic that takes Read More
Small cracks sounded from the fire and the rest was silence. The girl was seated between her parents, the three of them aligned on a log her father had found and rolled to the glade of their campsite. They were alone in this place. The wind seemed to change whenever the girl faced the fire Read More
Paul Auster Faber & Faber; Hbk; £20 For an author whose work has always been concerned, above all else, with the idea that “the world is so unpredictable,” it seems no small irony that Paul Auster’s fiction has remained so rigidly formulaic over the entirety of his career. For years, anyone even remotely familiar with Read More
Mike McCormack (Canongate, 2016), pbk, £8.99 Gail Low
The ancient saying – ‘time and tide wait for no man’ – provides a poignant way to sum up Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13, a modern-day novel set in rural England. It is a novel that lures the reader in, with an opening scene detailing a search party for a missing thirteen-year-old girl, before beginning its Read More
The degree of abuse suffered is not always obvious to the observer but only known by the victim who is reluctant to share it with others. (Please feel free to handle the pieces) Ralph Mavin —- A man gets up one morning and he leaves his Read More
Polyzoa; sessile aquatic animals forming mossy colonies of small polyps each having a curved or circular ridge bearing tentacles; they attach to stones or seaweed, are filter feeders, and reproduce by budding. She looks up from her book. This new girl’s raised arm is the colour of Miss Jelly’s leather-bound volume of the complete works Read More