At the time of writing, Prime Minister May is in France to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings. By the end of the week she will have resigned, after a relatively short premiership dominated by Brexit. At the D day ceremony a 90-something veteran tells a BBC reporter that it took so much … More Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley
The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: The Merchant of Venice, Act 4 Scene 1 At the time of writing I’m not long back from Stratford-upon-Avon and a … More The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth
“A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.” Dorrigo Evans, age 77, is a surgeon, a war hero; a celebrity of sorts, made famous by a television documentary about his time as a POW in a Japanese camp on the Burma Death Railway, using his medical skills to save what … More The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
Should I stay or should I go now? If I go there will be trouble. An’ if I stay there will be double (from The Clash’s single Should I Stay or Should I Go?) The Inheritance of Loss won the Man Booker prize in 2006. It opens in the remote Himalayan town of Kalimpong, where a retired … More The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
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