Bill Bryson has published a vast amount of books and might be as rich as a writer can get save for Stephen King, but I won’t hold it against him. I do not know if he has ever published fiction but I do enjoy his well written non-fiction. especially a book he wrote about Australia and today’s subject: The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got to Be That Way.
Continue reading “Auld Author – The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson – An essay by Leila”
My Trainspotting experience was one of the few times that I saw the film before I read the book. And it is also one of the incredibly few times that I consider both items of equal high quality.
Continue reading “Auld Author – Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh by Leila.”
(published 2003)
It amazes how time blasts along. This book, at one time, a Great New Thing, a Booker Prize winner, now celebrates its twenty-third birthday.
Continue reading “Auld Author – Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini”
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) had a short life but was a prolific author. His first work (a history) was published when he was just 16 and he went on to write 13 novels, 6 collections of short stories, and several books of non-fiction. They weren’t all wonderful: a sequel (‘Catriona’) to the brilliant ‘Kidnapped,’ is sometimes cited as a perfect example of an ill-advised sequel; and ‘St Ives,’ incomplete at his death, was then completed by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, mores the pity. But there are quite enough diamonds among his output to justify his global reputation.
Continue reading “Auld Author: Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘The Master of Ballantrae’by Michael Bloor”
I could write a novel on what I think about this writer.
James Herbert – My all-time favourite horror writer.
Continue reading “Writers Read – James Herbert by Hugh Cron”
Kafkaesque
Franz Kafka has a sixty-something-word story called “The Watchman” in the translation from German. In this piece, the narrator keeps running back and forth in front of the watchman in order to taunt him, while also being terrified that he might be arrested at any moment, but unable to desist. In sixty or so words, Kafka encapsulates the outcast outsider, the paranoid underdog known as the modern human being: the contemporary everyman.
Continue reading “Writers Reading – Review by Dale Willliams Barrigar “
Re-Reading ‘Lucky Jim’
Note: This review contains spoilers.
I’m a big fan of re-reading, a sovereign cure for Life’s Disappointments. Whenever you injure your foot at the start of a walking holiday, or your team gets relegated, or the school bully turns up again as your new line manager, there’s one guaranteed restorative: re-reading a favourite story. And not just any favourite story: for my money, it’s got to be either a galloping adventure story, or a comic novel. (Notice I don’t say ‘favourite author:’ Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island,’ or ‘Kidnapped,’ definitely fall into the ‘sovereign cure’ category, but don’t ever pick up his ‘St Ives’).
Continue reading “Writers Reading. Review by Mick Bloor”
The Unfortunates by B. S. Johnson
I’ve always enjoyed reading books that challenge the reader, turn the experience on its head a bit, make me do some work in return for the work they’ve done, and just make me think about what’s possible with writing. There are those that do it with such force it makes for some mental heavy lifting and cognitive contortionism from the reader, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch being prime examples (even though I admit to having enjoyed reading both those), but I want to talk about one of my very favourite writers, B. S. Johnson.
Continue reading “Writers Reading. Review by Paul Kimm”
A slightly different take on the auld author recommendation from Tom Sheehan who has written about a personal experience as a connection with this poet
Continue reading “Auld Author”
