If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know I usually open each review with a story or an anecdote. This time I’m going to break with tradition and pitch straight in. The Chip-Chip Gatherers is set in Trinidad and centred on the Settlement, a collection of “mean huts and houses clinging despairingly to … More The Chip-Chip Gatherers by Shiva Naipaul
I’m lucky enough to be celebrating my 29th wedding anniversary on the beautiful island of Rhodes. Hubby and I rented a house for a week in Rhodes Old Town and we’re sitting in its private courtyard garden having just got back from swimming in the sea off Elli Beach. This has nothing to do with … More A Good Man In Africa by William Boyd
My dad was a short man with a short fuse. Mostly affable, he could explode into violent rage at the smallest of provocations. As a child I witnessed him throw stuff in the air, hurl stuff to the floor, bang his fist on tables, and lash out at whichever unlucky sentient got in the way: … More Docherty by William McIlvanney
Aged 19 and nearing the end of my first year at university, I dragged an old school friend, Jenny, to Mary O’Malley’s award winning play, Once a Catholic, along with our newly acquired boyfriends, Mike (mine) and Khalid (hers). Once a Catholic is set in an all girls’ Catholic convent school in the 1950s. Jenny, … More How Far Can You Go by David Lodge
I first remember hearing about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath in an English lesson after reading an extract from Plath’s The Bell Jar. I was sweet sixteen, it was an all-girls school, and my teacher was young, female, and romantic; Ted Hughes (we all agreed) was not a nice man. Thirty years on, I’m old … More Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes
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