Book Reviews

Books: RelativismAuthor: Mary Ford NealPublisher: Taproot Press This is a book of relations, in the sense of both relationships and relatives. Mary Ford Neal records and at times celebrates family life and domesticity, without shying away from how confining these can be. But it’s also a book of intellectual roaming, the work of a mind […]

Book: A Working Class State of Mind Author: Colin BurnettPublisher: Pierpoint Press (2021) Colin Burnett is a Midlothian based short-story writer, who has an inherent belief in the importance of Scottish culture, language and history.  In this striking debut collection, he combines this passion with his education in sociology, to lead us into the depths

Books: Dante’s TrilogyAuthor: Alasdair GrayPublisher: Canongate William Blake, an English writer and artist of genius, illustrated Dante’s Divine Comedy but didn’t translate it. Alasdair Gray, a Scottish writer and artist of genius, seemed to be going a step further, both illustrating and translating this medieval masterpiece. But three book covers and a handful of illustrations

Book: Bunnyman: A MemoirAuthor: Will SergeantPublisher: Little, Brown Book Group Cards on the table, Echo & The Bunnymen were without doubt the coolest band to emerge in the 80s, they had the look, the hair, the clothes but most importantly the tunes and the sheer gallusness to bring it all together and pull it off.

Book: Fish TownAuthor: John Gerard FaganPublisher: Guts Publishing 2021 Only the truly lost wash up on the shores of Yaizua fish town in a forgotten part of Japan fish town In 2013, twenty-nine year old Masters Creative Writing graduate John Gerard Fagan from Muirhead, near Glasgow, was living in the midst of a recession, had

Book: The Mash HouseAuthor: Alan GillespiePublisher: Unbound Teacher-turned-writer Alan Gillespie hands in his debut work and it’s ready to be marked. Gillespie’s mighty tome is set in the fictional village of Cullrothes, a remote, unforgiving corner of the Scottish Highlands whose inhabitants are inextricably linked by secrets, lies and the produce of its local distillery.

Book: A Tomb With A ViewAuthor: Peter RossPublisher: Headline, 2020 Peter Ross has been fascinated by graveyards since he was young, tracing the letters and symbols of tombstones in the Old Town Cemetery in Stirling, near his grandparents’ home and reading the slabs like ‘shelves full of stories’.  He now lives by Cathcart Cemetery in Glasgow,

Samuel Beckett is so revered a writer that one website dedicated to the avant-garde (ubu.com) carries a photograph of him glowering over the contents of its homepage, with no accompanying quote or caption, just the square-cut grey hair, wrinkled skin, and steely gaze visible through dark glasses. He is the watchful master, overseeing proceedings like

Book: Saturday, 3pm: 50 Eternal Delights of Modern FootballAuthor: Daniel GrayPublisher: Bloomsbury There really is no substitute for attending a football match, it doesn’t matter if you support Barcelona or St Rochs juniors, there is nothing quite like the buzz of a day out at the football. There is so much more to 22 players

Book: Xstabeth Author: David Keenan Publisher: White Rabbit Books Xstabeth – An appreciation of the work of David W. Keenan by George Paterson (SR|SIF) DPsych – Incomplete By 1994, I was in the deepest sleep. I’d made it my business to experiment at that time so maybe I wasn’t dreaming at all. It didn’t feel