The Todmorden Tales is a collection of short stories that Brian & I wrote in the mid-90s for The Little Red Book, a little magazine we published at the time. We’d often talked about putting them all together into a book, and actually did so in 2020. It sold very poorly (mainly from lack of […]
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A short update post – a lot has been going on since I last posted. Last year, after a long illness, my beloved Brian died. I am now on my own and thinking hard about my future. After two years of being a full-time carer, my health isn’t too good and I’ll need to move […]
…Sara Maitland’s The Book of Silence – an autobiographical essay on her search for, and meditations on, silence. I can agree with much of what she writes – of how silence should be regarded a presence, not an absence, for instance; and her joy at living alone and reasonably secure is well expressed, and makes […]
The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill The time is 1976, the place is Laos. The Royal Family has been overthrown by the Communist Pathet Lao; many of the country’s intellectuals and ruling class have emigrated, and the country is reshaping itself while struggling out of chaos. Caught up in this is Dr Siri Paiboun, a […]
Duma Key by Stephen King I have to confess that I haven’t read that many Stephen King books. So this could be far from being one of his best. However, it’s very nearly the best King that I‘ve read so far. 1992’s Dolores Claiborne and last year’s Lisey’s Story I’d class as he very best; […]
Alic Sebold’s The Lovely Bones was built around in interesting and (as far as I know) original concept of the afterlife: rather than there being a single one-size-fits-all Heaven where everybody goes, everyone gets their own individual Heaven – a place where they are truly happy. Although each heaven is specific to each individual, they […]