Tag: writing

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Idiotic luxury indulged by people who do nothing, but moved by the spectacle of suffering

rrn69

French philosopher Vincent Delecroix’s novel, translated by Helen Stevenson, Small Boat, weaves a short, sharp, shocking tragic story shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. In November 2021, an inflatable dingy carrying more than 30 migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the Channel killing 27 people on board. Despite receiving numerous calls for help, at 1:45 am the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British waters and had to call the British authorities for help. Since the boat was about a kilometre from British waters, the same passengers kept calling Cross, shockingly, the female … Continue reading Idiotic luxury indulged by people who do nothing, but moved by the spectacle of suffering

Uncategorized1 Comment

Media Circus: Golden age of Magazines

rrn69

Graydon Carter’s brilliant raconteur of his own life of how he made his mark as one of society’s most talented editors and shapers of culture. Carter born in 1949, arrived in New York from Canada with little more than a suitcase, a failed literary magazine in his past and a keen sense of ambition. He landed a job as a floating writer at Time magazine in New York, selling 4 million copies a week, with salaries and expenses to match. After five years he was reassigned to Time’s sister magazine, Life, which “had become a zombie monthly, close to dead”. He … Continue reading Media Circus: Golden age of Magazines

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Ultimate vigilante story

rrn69

The Feather men is the riveting story of a secret organization whose efforts by a private British vigilance committee, founded in England in the late 1960s.  Their 14-year attempt to eliminate a band of coldblooded contract killers of a number of British ex-servicemen in Britain and abroad. From 1977 to 1990, three hired assassins known as the Clinic tracked down and murdered four former British soldiers, one at a time. Each of the assassinations was carried out in such an ingenious fashion that there would be no hint of foul play, but one clue these killings has in common was that … Continue reading Ultimate vigilante story

Uncategorized1 Comment

You can’t outrun the past

rrn69

When New York law professor, Tom Layward’s wife, Amy’s infidelity was revealed, he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest daughter turned eighteen. Twelve years later, while driving her to Pittsburgh to start university, he remembers his pact. It is a commitment born of spite and pride, unlikely to stand the test of time. As soon as his daughter is settled in her dorm, though, he gets in his car and starts driving. His destination – friends, relatives, exes, the basketball courts beloved of his youth – is anywhere but home. It doesn’t help that Tom’s job in … Continue reading You can’t outrun the past

Uncategorized1 Comment

Swimming with dolphins…

rrn69

A English girl named Ishmaelle “born in a windswept cottage in the coast of Kent in the year  1843,” where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After the death of her parents and infant sister, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Call Me Ishamelle reimages the epic battle between man and nature in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick from a female perspective. Guo was inspired by a real-life story of 18-year-old Rebeca Ann Johnson who sailed out of Nantucket to Massachusetts, as the American Civil War breaks out in 1861, as part of the crew of the Nimrod, … Continue reading Swimming with dolphins…

Uncategorized1 Comment

Avalanche on Black Sunday

rrn69

Magical tale of climate catastrophe – a pure dust storm  is the new novel from the Pulitzer Prize shortlisted author Karen Russell, in The Antidote where the moving dust looks like a mountain range, or an avalanche on Black Sunday, April 1935, in the central plains of the US. Mid-afternoon, the temperature dropped; birds chattered, horizon turned black to flatten wheatfields, burying houses  and vaporising every memory stored inside the Antidote. She wakes up empty- as bankrupt as America. If her customers ever discover the truth, her life will be in danger. “The onrushing cloud, the darkness, and the thick, choking dirt, made this … Continue reading Avalanche on Black Sunday

Uncategorized1 Comment

Our fathers never taught us to be fathers…

rrn69

Chilean poet Alejandro Zambra, in Childish Literature, writes a collection of poems, essays and tales exploring the ups and downs of fatherhood especially orbiting around the theme of fathers and sons. Written in a state of attachment or under the influence of fatherhood, Childish Literature is an eclectic guide to rookie parents, revealing how the birth and growth of a child changes not only the present and the future, but also reshapes our perceptions of the past.   He ponders his unpreparedness: “Our fathers tried, in their own ways, to teach us to be men, but they never taught us to … Continue reading Our fathers never taught us to be fathers…

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sheldon Edwards, London-based designer barber

rrn69

Qatar Airways flies in Sheldon Edwards of HD Cutz, a favourite among celebrities to cut their hair in the paddocks of Doha Formula One. His visitors at F1 paddock stall in Doha ahead of the race included Nowak Djokovic, Rio Ferdinand and several others who sat in the brown leather chair and got their hair styled for viral looks. Sheldon Edwards started from humble beginnings in Clarendon, Jamaica, and expanded to renting barber chair spots all over UK, with the flagship shop at Battersea, 103a Lavender Hill, London SW11 5QL. Sheldon is a third-generation British-Jamaican barber who first hated cutting … Continue reading Sheldon Edwards, London-based designer barber

Uncategorized1 Comment

Shifting tides of society

rrn69

A novella composed as a triptych, about two sisters and a night that changes everything, from the master chronicler of our heart’s hidden desires. Evelyn had the surprising thought that bodies were sometimes wiser than people inside them. She’d have like to impress somebody with this idea, but couldn’t explain it. On a Winter Saturday night in post-war Bristol, bringing to life with its docks, bombed out streets and crumbling grand houses, with ever moving sea and endless rain act as brooding backdrops and metaphors for the characters’ emotional turbulence. Sisters Moira and Evelyn, newly middle class,  their mother a … Continue reading Shifting tides of society

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Wild Goose

rrn69

“ WILD GOOSE” – A NEW NOVEL BY VERY ESTABLISHED WRITER ANDPOET – SALLY EVANS Sally is a poet working in long and formal styles. She was editor of PoetryScotland broadsheet 1997-2018, and hosted the popular Callander Poetry Weekends that ran for nearly 20 years. She has published poetry widely in magazines and books, translated Gaelic poetry, and been a poetry editor of the Scots Language Centre’s website. At Diehard Press, she has edited and published books by many other poets.Sally has read and performed poetry at StAnza, in all the Scottish cities and throughout England, especially the North. She has led workshops … Continue reading Wild Goose