Tag: fiction

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OnlyFans and Sex satire

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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

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Rich family’s trauma after kidnapping

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In 1980, a wealthy successful businessman, a factory owner, Carl Fletcher, living with his wife Ruth and their two sons, Nathan and Bernard, on their big estate on Long Island, is kidnapped from his driveway in the nicest part of the nicest part of Long Island. He is brutalise, held for ransom and then returned to his family. Miraculously, carl, his wife and his three kids are left to move on with their lives and resume their prized places in the ongoing saga of the American dream. But nearly forty years later, when Carl’s mother dies, the trauma that has … Continue reading Rich family’s trauma after kidnapping

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Poetry in Scotland

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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

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Abyss built on class and race, exploitation of domestic workers

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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

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Can good law topple the powerful

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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

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International Booker-winner Kairos

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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

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Short Story: The Octopus Curry

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The Octopus Curry  – A Short Story by Penny Nair Price Liz and Roger worked together and were great comrades in the office – Roger had had his eye on her for some time but he was strapped for cash and when  Friday evening came,  another colleague – Chris invited him to eat locally to the office as a treat. Liz said her goodbyes and went on her way for the weekend.  The chosen restaurant was on the first floor.  Roger took his rucksack with him, found a space for it,  and the two colleagues sat down to a wonderful … Continue reading Short Story: The Octopus Curry

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Alice Munro, master of short story and Nobel Prize winner dies aged 92

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Alice Munro known for mastery of short stories and depictions of womanhood in rural settings, has died in Ontario, Canada aged 92. Born in 1931 in Wingham, Ontario, Munro grew up in a fox and mink farm, in the most disreputable part of the town. Munro found an escape in reading as a child and her favourite writers like Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, and Lucy Maud Montgomery guided her in appreciating literature beyond her age. “Books seem to me to be magic, and I wanted to be part of the magic, Books are far more important to me than life”  … Continue reading Alice Munro, master of short story and Nobel Prize winner dies aged 92

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Agony and ecstasy engulfed by desire

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Provoking offbeat sexual acts, challenges the binary of marriage and explores sexuality in perimenopause.  All Fours is tender, hilarious and sexy. A semi-famous artist announces her  pan to drive cross-country, from LA  to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey. Miranda July in All Fours, a 45-year-old “semi-famous” artist who remains unnamed locks eyes with the young man who’s squeegeeing her . Their intense but … Continue reading Agony and ecstasy engulfed by desire

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On the Brink of fear & disaster

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Philip Notman, an acclaimed medieval history professor whose fondness for Emerson’s scariest quote “ I  am glad to be on the brink of fear”, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London, and to his wife and son, something unexpected and inexplicable happens to him, and he is unable to settle back into his normal life. Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to see Inés, a Spanish academic, with whom he shared a connection at the conference, but his journey doesn’t end there. A chance encounter with a wealthy, elderly couple sends him to a house on … Continue reading On the Brink of fear & disaster