Malorie starts straight out of the gates, some time has passed for Malorie and her children in the school of the blind, they’ve found a way of surviving, a way to live a way to hone their skills and be safe from the things that are outside, the things that drive people mad. But Malerman
I’m at home in the forest. It’s where I head when I feel the nature deficit in a fast-forward city lifestyle, where I go for top branch birdsong and the sound of leaves touching. I like the sticky scent of tree sap and bark at my back and to marvel at the forest’s longevity, an
It was some twelve years ago that whilst in southwestern Turkey for the first time, I began to read Louis de Bernières’ ‘Birds Without Wings’ and quickly realized that the fictional village of Eskibahce, where the story was set, was inspired by the ancient community of Kayaköy where I just so happened to be staying
Choke Chain by Jason Donald has a long emotional reach. Set in 1980’s apartheid South Africa it narrates the Thorne’s dysfunctional family life with clarity and compassion. Domesticity, gender politics and inequality are explored kitchen-sink style in this simmering story where two brothers, Alex, aged twelve, and Kevin, eight, grow up in poverty with an
All small towns have their secrets, but they rarely come as dark and dingy as those rising from the waters of Greystone Lake, the backdrop for this woozy psychological thriller. When Nate McHale, a family man with a shady past, returns home for the funeral of a high school classmate, spiralling events draw him to
If anger is an energy, then so is love. This collection, a much-lauded finalist for the American National Book Award, comes fizzing with both. The author, Danez Smith, is a vibrant young black poet whose writing flows most often between tender, elegiac confessionals and the incantatory charge of the performance pieces for which he is
‘NOTHING BURNS AS BRIGHT AS THE TRUTH’ Some of you may already be swooning and adoring fan of the actress, Krysten Ritter. If so, you’re probably not going to need to read this review to decide whether to give it a read or not. However, if you are as unaware of the ‘Jessica Jones’ and
Donald Ray Pollock is an American writer. Born in 1954 and raised in Knockemstiff, Ohio, Pollock has lived his entire adult life in Chillicothe, Ohio, where he worked at the Mead Paper Mill as a laborer and truck driver until age 50, when he enrolled in the English program at Ohio State University. While there, Doubleday published his debut short story collection, Knockemstiff, and
Let’s get this out of the way now, so I don’t have to mention it too much during the review of ‘Uncommon Type’. Yes, it’s Tom Hanks. The prolific, award winning, Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks. Yep, the person that voiced Woody in Toy Story, that’s him. You didn’t know he was a writer…well he
Men Without Women is a collection of seven stories about, as its title predicts, men without women. But, if you’re even mildly familiar with contemporary Japanese author Haruki Murakami, you’ll know that is not all he has to offer. The tales detail men with and without women. He explores the intricacies of the relationship between
