Blimey, it’s 2023! Last time I looked, it was 2017! I remember as a boy trying to work out how old I would be when the millennium came to its close. It seemed impossibly far distant, and my age in the year 2000 impossibly old. And yet, here we are.I’m currently revamping this site, and… Continue reading Now, where were we?
Brexit is at the centre, both literally and metaphorically, of Jonathan Coe’s latest novel. The title hints at the territory it covers: geographical, since much of the action takes place in the English midlands; social, since many, but by no means all, of the characters are comfortably-off middle class; and psychological, since the sympathetic characters… Continue reading Jonathan Coe, Middle England
Piers Paul Read is something of an oddity in contemporary English fiction, in that he is probably best known for his non-fiction work, most notably Alive, the 1975 account of the aftermath of the Andes plane crash. His other non-fiction has varied between other chronicles of disaster, such as Ablaze, about the Chernobyl nuclear reactor… Continue reading Piers Paul Read: A Patriot in Berlin
As my dear reader will know, Anthony Burgess is a constant presence in my life, so it was a pleasure to provide a little guide to some of my favourites among his works for the latest Shiny New Books. As ever, Shiny has lots to offer the discerning reader. The photo is of me spouting… Continue reading Reading Burgess
Shiny New Books is now updated more frequently, as the website posts reviews in smaller batches. My latest reviews are of Melissa Harrison’s charming Rain, and Thomas Dilworth’s monumental biography of the poet and artist David Jones. Harriet’s review of the new Helen Dunmore novel, Birdcage Walk has moved it high on my TBR list.… Continue reading Shiny New Books
This is the fourth in David Hewson‘s series featuring Amsterdam-based detective Pieter Vos, and old fans will not be disappointed. In this complex, and swift-moving narrative, Vos is personally involved in a case involving the abduction of a young woman, in circumstances which recall another case from some years before. Vos is troubled by the… Continue reading David Hewson: Sleep Baby Sleep
Edward Petherbridge is probably best known now as the definitive Lord Peter Wimsey in the BBC adaptations of the late eighties, opposite Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane. He brought a wounded sensitivity to the part, presenting a more complex figure than his predecessor Ian Carmichael, who remained largely in Bertie Wooster mode. Any casual viewer… Continue reading Edward Petherbridge and Bloomsbury
As a Mancunian, for me one of the immediate delights of this novel by Neil Campbell is the authenticity of the detail. The topography of the city, its street names, pubs and landmarks are all chronicled faithfully, so that you can trace the physical wanderings of the protagonist as he makes his picaresque way from… Continue reading Neil Campbell: Sky Hooks
A new edition of Shiny New Books has hit the web, and there’s a review by me of the latest volume in the monumental series of TS Eliot letters. As ever, there’s lots more to look at, so have a browse.
For over forty years now, the Kronos Quartet have been pushing the boundaries of what’s musically possible for four classically trained string players to do. Along the way, they have covered not just the classic twentieth-century western repertoire of quartet music by such giants as Webern, Bartók and Schnittke, but have continually expanded their range… Continue reading The Kronos Quartet at the RNCM