Tag: Books

Uncategorized1 Comment

Roald Dahl, a new play

rrn69

A new play at the Royal Court in London is set to explore World’s No 1 storyteller, Roald Dahl’s legacy and contradictions. Giant by Mark Rosenblatt takes place over the imagined course of an afternoon in 1983, in which Dahl must decide how to handle the scandal that could sink his career. A book review he has written for a literary magazine, comparing Isarel to Nazi Germany and called all Jews cowards if they don’t condemn the Israeli state, has caused quite a dismay. The Witches by Roald Dahl could well be his masterpiece, is about o come out and … Continue reading Roald Dahl, a new play

Uncategorized1 Comment

Overwhelming incandescent rage

rrn69

Zoe Stamper, Junior researcher in Ancient Greek Tragedy, the younger partner in a same-sex marriage which has produced two children, Zoe is, after almost 20 years, now messily attempting to separate from her spouse, Dr Penny Cartwright. Complications are added by the fact that Robin, the children’s biological father, who donated sperm to both women and is fully present in their lives, occupies the flat below theirs. Robin’s uncompromising parental role, rigidly set out before either child was even conceived, is amplified by a fourth party, his sister Justine – who also happens to be Penny’s-ex. Zoe, down the academic … Continue reading Overwhelming incandescent rage

Uncategorized1 Comment

Ordinary life made exceptional

rrn69

In My Beloved Life, Jadunath Kunwar, a historian, involving lining up the past with the present. Having lived through the evolution of modern India, Jadu wishes to tell “ the story of our nation at a point of time”,  but spends most of his life putting off the act of writing it all down. “ I’m not a  writer” a rural doctor tells another character. An exceptionally moving novel that traces the arc of a man’s life, an ordinary life made exceptional by the fact that he was loved and has been loved in turn. Born in 1935 to illiterate … Continue reading Ordinary life made exceptional

Uncategorized1 Comment

OnlyFans and Sex satire

rrn69

Twenty-year-old Margo, child of a Hooter’s waitress and an ex-pro-wrestler, got money troubles, but she’s always known she’d have to make it on her own. When she finds herself pregnant by her college English professor, naïve and drifting – who is very keen not to be involved – she realizes she will need cash fast. She hadn’t thought through the consequences of having a baby- now  she’s lost her waitressing job and it looks unlikely she  will be able to afford her rent. Although Margo lacks in options she makes up for in ingenuity, and soon she has a plan. … Continue reading OnlyFans and Sex satire

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Poetry in Scotland

rrn69

Writing about writers – with the skills only a writer knows!The novel of a Sestineer and the descendants of a Victorian novelist.Review of “Lettersgait” – her new novel by Sally Evans. Published byFiction Direct – a new branch of Diehard Callender press (established 1990). £8 in person, £10 posted. http://www.readfictiondirect.co.uk for this and other books. Sally Evans – now with a PHD in Literature follows up her very popular novel“Wild Goose” with new novel – “Lettersgait”, and so this is Sally’s secondnovel focussing on the environment of a literary world. The likeable and wellportrayed characters engross us in a story … Continue reading Poetry in Scotland

Uncategorized1 Comment

Abyss built on class and race, exploitation of domestic workers

rrn69

A young girl has died and the family’s maid is being interrogated.  She must tell the whole story before arriving the girl’s death. Estela came from the countryside, leaving her mother behind, to work for the señor and señora when their only child was born. They wanted a housemaid:”smart appearance, full time”, their  ad said. She wanted to make enough money to suppor her mother and return home. For seven years, Estela cleaner their laundry, wipe their floors, made their meals, kept their secrets, Witnessed their fights and frictions, raised their daughter. She heard the rats scrabbling in the ceiling, saw the looks … Continue reading Abyss built on class and race, exploitation of domestic workers

Uncategorized1 Comment

Cursed by guilt, enchanted by the allure of mysticism

rrn69

Pemi Aguda who grew up in Lagos, a graduate of the writer’s programme at the University of Michigan, details magic and mayhem in the Lagos metropolis riven by crime, corruption and poverty, influenced by supernatural influences. In Ghostroots, unexplained powers which are both benign and malign, although their motivations are good but their impact is devastating, and in some cases act as messengers of divine retribution. The result of an environmental disarray, a place in which power cut are routine, masculinity is malevolent and pentecostal ministers hold sway with parables of salvation, as these ghosts, spirit jesters, unaccountable pestilences and … Continue reading Cursed by guilt, enchanted by the allure of mysticism

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Can good law topple the powerful

rrn69

Jolyon Maugham, a King’s Counsel, charismatic and successful obscure tax barrister, whose memoir cum social action manifesto Bringing Down Goliath, a product of the bird site, and large portions of it cannot really be understood unless the  reader has followed our hero’s perambulations  through Twitter. He started a mild successful blog, which led him advising the Labour Party on tax policy and even to fleeting fantasies of becoming attorney general in the House of Lords in an Ed Miliband government. But what really made him famous was hi energetic consistent abuse of anyone who disagreed with him on Twitter  where he has 420, … Continue reading Can good law topple the powerful

Uncategorized1 Comment

Father of gyno-psychiarty

rrn69

Butcher is the harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr Silas Weir, “Father of Gyno-Psychiatry” as he ascends from professional anonymity to national renown. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Weir is forced to take a position at the New Jersey Asylum for Female Lunatics, where he reigns. There, he is allowed to continue his practice, unchecked for decades, making a name for himself by focusing on women who have been neglected by the state – women he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself a … Continue reading Father of gyno-psychiarty

Uncategorized1 Comment

International Booker-winner Kairos

rrn69

Jenny Erpenbeck and her translator Michael Hofmann won the coveted International Booker prize for Kairos a fiction which was translated into English. Erpenbeck previously won the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, for The End of Days (2015). Kairos ( name of a Greek gid as well as a word for a critical moment, is Erpenbeck’s fourth novel and the first of her books to be translated by Hofmann, is an allegorical story of a May-December affair unfolding in East Berlin during the end days of the GDR. An extramarital entanglement between the 19-year-old student Katharina and Hans, a writer in … Continue reading International Booker-winner Kairos