THE IMPORTANCE OF REWILDING & REVIEW OF 30 DAYS OF REWILDING BY LUCY AITKENREAD’
I’ve returned. Returned from a magical holiday in Sussex where we stayed on a little farm with an orchard, twenty minutes away from two seaside locations and I have to tell you, it has reignited a great wildness in my heart. Every evening after our dinner as the farmers packed up their day’s labour Ayla asked for “orchard” never had red ruby spheres brought such joy to her as she pointed out the cooking apples from the eating ones and crunched on apples she had picked herself. As sheep grazed then scattered from beneath the trees, the sun would slowly
H IS FOR HAWK BY HELEN MACDONALD
Literature | Review H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald Macdonald’s H is for Hawk is without a doubt “nature writing” at its finest. It’s the winner of the Samuel Johnson prize as well as the Costa biography award. Its beautifully written prose is poetic, sharp and mesmerizing all at once. Since childhood, Macdonald a writer and historian had a love for falconry. Knowledge that it belonged to a Victorian history made up of the male upper class didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest. When MacDonald’s father dies, she finds herself dealing with her grief by focusing
THE TRIP TO ECHO SPRING BY OLIVIA LAING
Literature | Review The Trip To Echo Spring by Olivia Laing If you loved Laing’s first book To The River, you shan’t be disappointed by her latest masterpiece which graced the shelves last year. To The River was hypnotic in nature whereas Echo Spring swallows you whole and pulls you along Laing’s journey into the lives of six of the greatest American writers that lived; Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Williams,
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Review The Round House by Louise Erdrich Erdrich’s writing often reflects the lives of Native Americans and The Round House is of no exception. In the very familiar Stand By Me vein- the film version of course which I like many others obsessively watched as a child and young teenager, focuses on one summer; a group of friends and their entry into adulthood due to one defining incident. The Round House is a beautiful, harrowing, coming of age novel set on a South Dakotareservation where thirteen year old Joe’s mother is brutally raped. He takes it into his own
Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson
It’s very exciting and a privilege to be a part of Kerry’s blog hop in celebration of its paperback release! I read and reviewed Tony Hogan this time last year during the throes of morning sickness and luckily, her book managed to pull my mind away and immerse me in the world of Jannie Ryan. And what fun it truly was. But that is enough, I shall hand you over to the brilliant, hilarious and talented Kerry herself who tells us about her favourite London writing spots; Tony Hogan was written during a six month stint in Vietnam but before Tony Hogan there
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Literature | Review Wild by Cheryl Strayed Cheryl Strayed with “Monster” I often wonder about what compels a person to pursue a risky pastime, whether it is climbing mountains; base jumping, hang gliding or in Strayed’s case, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail on her own. Strayed, you learn rather quickly is a normal person yet rather extraordinary. Extraordinary in her outlook on life and her perseverance on the grueling task ahead, she writes “…How can a book describe the psychological factors a person must prepare for…The despair, the alienation, the anxiety and especially the pain, both physical and mental…”
Orkney by Amy Sackville
Literature | Review Orkney by Amy Sackville Writing a second novel is a grueling task, particularly when your first one was as well received as Sackville’s The Still Point. Sackville once more pulls the reader north, not the North Pole like before, but to Orkney where the stage is set for a married couple once more. Unlike the couple in The Still Point, Sackville does not use the stream of conscious technique which she mastered admirably, but instead, we have one protagonist and one set of thoughts, those of which belong to Richard. Richard is a sixty something academic who
A Life Online (Published in Avrupa)
Avrupa Times A Life Online 29th April 2013 And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life Inaudible as dreams! The desk now brandishes a muslin square, a pacifier and on my lap, a baby whose arms & legs remain contentedly animated, but wait, she is now falling asleep to the rhythm of my desk clock and the tapping of my fingers across the keyboard. How life has changed. Every single aspect of our lives has changed thanks to a beautiful twelve week
Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil (published in Avrupa)
Literature | Review Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil In the typical poet behaviour, Thayil immediately churns out a prologue which goes on for 7 pages without a single full stop. There isn’t a breather in place, just a suffocating reflection of a trance-like mind that has been drug ridden and now mirrored onto the page. The novel is set in the late seventies in Bombay, depicting the drug culture and the changes within it, such as the shift from the more respectable opium to dirty heroin with a vast amount of sex and violence thrown in for good measure; they do after all
The Lighthouse by Alison Moore (published in Avrupa)
Literature | Review The Lighthouse by Alison Moore It’s a small book in stature with an image of a lighthouse engulfing the cover which is fitting for the novel’s content. According to Moore, the birth of this novel was borne out of a vision of a man sitting alone in a kitchen which wasn’t his own and this man was Futh, the novel’s protagonist. What can one say about Futh other than the fact that he is a highly unlikable character. Of course, it is ok to not like a character; this doesn’t mean the whole novel is going
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