Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver (published in Avrupa)
Literature | Review Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver Climate change, no, it’s not a dirty word; it’s a very real and obvious plight. It’s that ‘thing’ that makes our winters wetter and milder, forcing trees to rot and fruit to blacken; it’s that thing that causes freak snow flurries in April and thirty degree heat -waves in October. We only have to look at our fruit to know that something is not quite right. Did you notice this summer how blackberries didn’t make an appearance until almost August and were short-lived? Or how fruit doesn’t seem to ripen in the
Black Sky, Black Sea by Izzet Celasin
Literature | Review Black Sky, Black Sea by Izzet Celasin Black Sky, Black Sea by Izzet Celasin could have truly sung if its poetry found towards the end, had been present throughout. The book opens with the Mayday Demonstrations on Labour Day in 1977 in Turkey in which we find our protagonist leaving school secretly to attend to with his friends. It doesn’t take long for “Oak” which is his nickname, as we don’t find out his real name till the end in a somewhat dramatic revelation, is swept along in the crowd as violence breaks out. What captures Oak’s
Good Offices by Evelio Rosero (published in Avrupa)
Literature | Review Good Offices by Evelio Rosero The setting is a small Columbian church where the poor are fed daily and everything appears peachy, isn’t that always the case? Our protagonist is a hunchback called Tancredo who works as a priest’s acolyte in the hope of one day going to university but Father Almeida who rules all beneath him, has a firm grip on everyone and is unlikely to let go any time soon. We don’t learn a good deal about the protagonist as there is never much time to do so in a novella but what we
Exile by Jakob Ejersbo
Literature | Review Exile by Jakob Ejersbo Ejersbo, a lot like Steig Larson, never got to see this book published as he died of cancer in 2008. Exile is the first of The African Trilogy depicting his experiences of living in Africa , offering a shocking insight into life in Tanzaniaduring the 1980s. It reveals the lives of young European expatriates who plummet into a life of hedonism, corruption and a deplorable work ethic which stem down from their money, power hungry parents. The narrator is fifteen year old Samantha, or as she likes to call herself “Sam the
Rook by Jane Rusbridge
Literature | Review Rook by Jane Rusbridge If there is such a thing as an essential summer read, it is Rusbridge’s atmospheric Rook. Whether one reads it under the shade of a tree or indoors on a rainy day with a vat of tea, the reader will find the story lulling them into a world they will find impossible to completely pull away from. At dawn every day Nora runs to the sea, she has returned home suddenly believing she can escape her public life as a cellist but finds herself ever more trapped in music as well a strained
The Murder of Halland by Pia Juul
Literature | Review The Murder of Halland by Pia Juul It’s a beautiful book; small and delicate and it is okay to be taken in by its external beauty, in this case one has nothing to worry about. Peirene Press produce a different series of books each year, specialising in contemporary European novellas which have been translated, each book has to be under 200 pages long, perfect for a one sitting read. Once the reader has pealed the cover away, they are immediately transported into a world with a very lucid Danish backdrop where we enter the lives of
Review : Tony Hogan Bought me an Ice Cream Float before he Stole my ma by Kerry Hudson
Literature | Review Tony Hogan Bought me an Ice Cream Float before he Stole my ma by Kerry Hudson The title is a mouthful indeed; it captures the reader’s attention with its uplifting motif, yet sinister title. Just as the cover stands out and holds ones gaze, it must be said that first time novelist, Hudsonis able to keep a hold of the reader’s attention throughout. The reader is transported to Scotland and Hudson makes it easier for the reader, instead of having to fine-tune the brain to the Scottish dialect, she reserves all Scottish dialect for dialogue producing a
Come to the Edge by Joanna Kavenna
Literature | A Portrait of a Valley Come To the Edge by Joanna Kavenna At some point in most people’s lives, they have dreamt or pined after ‘the’ country life. One pictures themselves in the middle of a Constable painting with a Turner sky as a backdrop, or maybe they imagine themselves waking early, maybe with the rooster’s crow, but of course rosters can and will crow at any point of the day if so they wish. People dream of cosy fires and walks in the rolling hills recounting the flora and fauna as their cocker spaniel bounds along beside
LONE WOLF BY JODI PICOULT
Literature | Book Review Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult Jodi Picoult, a prolific writer in her own right, brings her readers’ attention to a number of vital and difficult questions in her latest novel Lone Wolf in which we are forced to question our morals. A father’s life falls into the hands of his two children as he lays in a coma; his daughter Cara believes defiantly in the fighting spirit, the spirit of the wolf. His estranged son, Edward who has difficulty accepting his father’s choice of living and running with wolves over his family, decides he should be
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