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RBS Talks - Dava Sobel

Books

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Dock Life - The Leith Festival

Dock Life - The Leith Festival

28 May 2009

So what’s The Leith Festival, then? It’s an annual community celebration that takes in comedy, dance, film, literature, music, storytelling theatre, visual art and children’s events – in other words everything. A small affair, is it? Hardly. Its…

5 Literary Festivals

5 Literary Festivals

28 May 2009

FEKP (Festival of the European Short Story) Expand your horizons at this laid-back, youthful and polylingual Croatian festival happening in and around the cafes, nightclubs and bars of Zagreb, often finishing up with a riotous night of gigging, and…

Jake Arnott

Jake Arnott: The Devil's Paintbrush

(3 stars)28 May 2009

Moving far away from his London-centric crime tales, Jake Arnott has plundered a chance and highly unlikely meeting between two figures from Britain’s colonial past. The Black Isle-born Hector Macdonald, aka Fighting Mac, was a proud general who fought…

Also Published: 5 Upcoming Novels

28 May 2009

David Peace Occupied City Back home in his native Yorkshire, the Damned United author delivers the second of his Tokyo stories with Japan now in its third year of US occupation. Faber, 6 Aug. Thomas Pynchon Inherent Vice The reclusive scribe…

Chuck Palahniuk: Pygmy

Chuck Palahniuk: Pygmy

(3 stars)28 May 2009

Having tackled the taboo subject of porn in his last book Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk’s tenth novel sees the controversy-courting author moving onto another no-no topic with this wickedly witty tale of terrorism in the American heartland. A terrorist attack…

Giles Foden: Turbulence

Giles Foden: Turbulence

(2 stars)28 May 2009

Giles Foden’s novel opens with the fantastical vision of icebergs being towed from Antarctica to Saudi Arabia for the purpose of watering the Sheikh’s desert. Taking in sea lions trained to detect mines, frissons and debate, the horror and waste of war…

Helen Fitzgerald: My Last Confession

Helen Fitzgerald: My Last Confession

(4 stars)28 May 2009

Glasgow-based Aussie writer Helen Fitzgerald likes to walk a high-wire in her fiction, balancing between the two disparate genres of intelligent chick-lit and dark, violent noir crime writing. In lesser hands it could be a mess, but Fitzgerald always…

Khaki Shorts

Various: Khaki Shorts

(3 stars)28 May 2009

More underground comics action pierces your mind as Khaki Shorts returns after a two-year hiatus. It’s a distinctly Glaswegian title (with just a dash of Edinburgh wit) packed with acidic humour ranging from sci-fi pastiche to police action with…

Trainspotting

Trainspotting Tours

28 May 2009

What’s not to love about this year’s Leith Festival programme? Here, Tim Bell waxes lyrical about Irvine Welsh’s famous novel (and subsequent film), Trainspotting, and the images it created of a drug-addled Leith. Check out highlights throughout the…

Margaret Elphinstone

Margaret Elphinstone: The Gathering Night

14 May 2009

Margaret Elphinstone has carved out a fine career as a purveyor of excellent historical novels, but for her latest offering she’s done something a bit different and gone prehistoric. The Gathering Night is set in Mesolithic Scotland, somewhere between…

David Aaronovitch: Voodoo Histories

David Aaronovitch: Voodoo Histories

(4 stars)14 May 2009

Pearl Harbour was engineered by FDR so America could enter World War II. Princess Di was bumped off by MI6. And 9/11 was the master plot of a wicked American administration. All because TV documentaries, the internet or some bloke down the pub told us…

Colm Tóibín: Brooklyn

Colm Tóibín: Brooklyn

(4 stars)14 May 2009

Times are tough in Enniscorthy, a small job-scarce town in the south-east of Ireland where idle gossip and parish dances are the only entertainment on offer for the young and restless. Instantly likeable leading lady Eilis Lacey’s life is turned upside…

Janice Galloway

Spirit of Jura

(3 stars)14 May 2009

While various coffee houses of the Scottish capital have taken credit for providing the caffeine-fuelled watershed for JK Rowling’s career, few places have such literary resonance as Jura. The iconic isle was the isolated spot where George Orwell, fresh…

Peter Wild (Ed): Paint a Vulgar Picture: Fiction Inspired by The Smiths

Peter Wild (Ed): Paint a Vulgar Picture: Fiction Inspired by The Smiths

(3 stars)14 May 2009

These short story collections of Peter Wild’s are certainly well designed for grabbing fans’ imaginations. He gets a fistful of contemporary writers to extrapolate from the songs of a particularly iconic band with The Fall and Sonic Youth having…

New British Comics No 1

New British Comics No 1

(3 stars)14 May 2009

New British Comics does exactly what you’d expect by gathering together a selection of up-and-coming comics talent, with a particularly strong Scottish showing. Don’t let the admittedly striking Tim Rees cover fool you: this isn’t superhero or even…

Also Published: 5 Paperback Biographys

14 May 2009

John Peel The Olivetti Chronicles Chosen by Peely’s wife and kids, this mix of early journalism, diaries, letters and odds ‘n’ sods pretty much amounts to a second memoir. Corgi. Richard Madeley Father and Sons Judy’s fella turned to a distinctly…

Storm Thorgerson

Storm Thorgerson

30 Apr 2009

Born in 1944, Storm Thorgerson’s childhood would not have been thought unusual were it not that he went to school with Roger Waters and Syd Barrett. ‘Roger and I had two connections, one of which was through our mothers, who happened to be pals, and…

Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro

30 Apr 2009

It’s a well-worn belief within literary circles that knocking out a short story collection is a sure-fire way to financial ruin. They just don’t sell well. Never have and probably never will. Yet many of literature’s towering figures have dabbled in the…

Guy Delisle - Burma Chronicles

Guy Delisle - Burma Chronicles

(4 stars)30 Apr 2009

TRAVELOGUE COMIC French-Canadian animator and cartoonist Guy Delisle previously documented his experiences in far-flung inaccessible countries with Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China and Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea. His third graphic travel…

Jeffrey Rotter - The Unknown Knowns

Jeffrey Rotter - The Unknown Knowns

(4 stars)30 Apr 2009

SATIRICAL TALE This debut novel by a graduate of New York’s Hunter College takes its title from Donald Rumsfeld’s famously bamboozling quote. Jeffrey Rotter may have given himself a high watermark of unintentional satire to live up to, but he…

Film Books Round-Up

Film Books Round-Up

30 Apr 2009

Liberal, Jewish, prolific, daring and bald – there can be little doubt that theatre and film director Otto Preminger (pictured, above) was one of Austria’s greatest gifts to Hollywood. Literary consideration of Preminger’s oeuvre, which includes a…

Christopher McDougall - Born to Run

Christopher McDougall - Born to Run

(4 stars)30 Apr 2009

SOCIAL TRAVELOGUE In 2001, former war correspondent and much-injured running nut Christopher McDougall asked his doctor why his foot hurt so badly. The medic, an expert in sports medicine, informed McDougall that at over six foot tall, his body was…

Helen Oyeyemi - White is for Witching

Helen Oyeyemi - White is for Witching

(2 stars)30 Apr 2009

GOTHIC DRAMA There is clearly much promise in the 24-year-old fingertips of Helen Oyeyemi but the scorching hype she’s been on the end of to date has been a little excessive. Her tale of a Devon-based family torn apart by the mysterious loss of the…

Monica Ali - In the Kitchen

Monica Ali - In the Kitchen

(2 stars)30 Apr 2009

MODERN DRAMA This third novel from Monica Brick Lane Ali ticks plenty zeitgeist boxes: multiculturalism in today’s Britain, the seedy business of human trafficking and the apparently exciting world of top-class chefs. But despite some nice writing…

Also Published - 5 Crime Novels

30 Apr 2009

Walter Mosley - The Long Fall Moving away from Easy Rawlins and the 1950s, Bill Clinton’s favourite writer brings us a modern-day New York PI Leonard McGill. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Nury Vittachi - The Feng Shui Detective’s Casebook A murder in the…

Janice Galloway

Janice Galloway

30 Apr 2009

As well as being one of the most original, lyrical writers from the current crop of major Scottish novelists, Janice Galloway is also one of the best performers of her own work that we've had the pleasure to hear. She’s going to be reading sections from…

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: State of Grace

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: State of Grace

16 Apr 2009

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s voice reflects a life split between America and her home country, Nigeria. So while she’ll enunciate each of her words clearly and slowly, she’s also picked up that uniquely American habit of adding a questioning ‘right?’ at…

The Secret of the Black Moon Moth

The Secret of the Black Moon Moth

(4 stars)16 Apr 2009

John Fardell must be responsible for an awful lot of frustrated children at bedtime. Whether they’re being read to, or reading alone, when the end of a chapter signals lights out it’s almost unbearable. King of the cliff-hanger and a master of…

Alan Moore

Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette & John Totleben - Saga of the Swamp Thing

(5 stars)16 Apr 2009

COMICS/SUPERHERO There’s no point going over old ground: if you have even the vaguest interest in comics you’ll know of the genius of Alan Moore. Watchmen, V For Vendetta and From Hell are established classics of the medium, as of course is Saga of…

Ben Moor - More Trees to Climb

Ben Moor - More Trees to Climb

(3 stars)16 Apr 2009

Comedy and theatre writer Ben Moor isn’t cool. He can’t be described as edgy, cutting or, even on the flipside, geek chic. Too wholesome to be indie, and too intellectual for personal whimsy, Moor’s seemingly fad-free short stories shun the fripperies…

Rebecca Gowers - The Twisted Heart

Rebecca Gowers - The Twisted Heart

(3 stars)16 Apr 2009

Kit is a gangly Oxford literature student, immersed in her thesis about the fictionalisation of real-life murders by Victorian authors. To let off steam, she goes to a dance class and meets a mysterious bloke called Joe, embarking on a relationship…

Gillian Philip - Crossing the Line

Gillian Philip - Crossing the Line

(4 stars)16 Apr 2009

Fiction for teenagers often tries too hard to protect or lecture its readers, with sanitised characters and everything rounded off into a neat anti-drugs or anti-sex moral. It’s very rare, and exciting, to find a writer like Gillian Philip, who…

Also Released - 5 History Books

16 Apr 2009

Robert Wallace & H Keith Melton with Henry Robert Schlesinger Spycraft One of these guys is a former director of the CIA, so this look at the organisation’s top gadgets should be on the money. Bantam. Max Arthur The Real Band of Brothers Subtitled…

John Aberdein - Strip the Willow

John Aberdein - Strip the Willow

(4 stars)16 Apr 2009

The unnervingly familiar Scottish city of Uberdeen faces financial collapse, so multinational powerhouse LeopCorp swoops in to take control. Thus the scene is set for John Aberdein’s astonishing follow-up to award-winning debut Amande’s Bed. Often…

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910

Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neil - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910

(4 stars)16 Apr 2009

From one of Moore’s oldest stories to his latest opus, the first part of the third volume of his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It’s an unlikely ‘superhero’ team of literary characters; in this case, the likes of Raffles, Orlando and Carnaki the…

Mark Radcliffe

Mark Radcliffe - Thank You for the Days

2 Apr 2009

Showbiz is, as many will attest, a fickle business. Radio DJ, TV presenter, musician and all-round music boffin Mark Radcliffe has managed to exist on its periphery, trousers and dignity both relatively intact, for over two and a half decades. That’s…

Wells Tower

Wells Tower - Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

(3 stars)2 Apr 2009

(Granta) SHORT STORY COLLECTION Another month, another hotshot North American writer comes our way. With a splurge of fanfare arrives this debut collection from Wells Tower, who has previously contributed to the cult literary likes of McSweeney’s…

Denise Mina

Denise Mina

2 Apr 2009

The award-winning Glasgow crime writer takes time out of from her play, short story and novel writing to set her stall on home turf and talk about her collection of works, including her newest, Still Midnight. Thu 16 Apr, Lost in Fiction, 114 Byres…

Also Published - 5 True Crime Paperbacks

2 Apr 2009

Peter Woolf - The Damage Done Woolf grew up as a kid in London’s criminal underworld and is now dedicated to helping others avoid the deadly pitfalls. Bantam. Mazher Mahmood - Confessions of a Fake Sheik This investigative journo has helped expose…

GF Newman - Crime and Punishment

GF Newman - Crime and Punishment

(3 stars)2 Apr 2009

(Quercus) GANGSTER NOVEL This London gangster novel doesn’t aspire to the lofty literary allusions of its Russian namesake. Eschewing Dostoevsky’s musings on the moral dilemma of murder, crime writer and TV producer Gordon Newman (Law and Order…

James Runcie - East Fortune

James Runcie - East Fortune

(1 star)2 Apr 2009

(Bloomsbury) FAMILY SAGA Featuring an ensemble cast of characters and set in East Lothian, this tedious novel is trying to be a modern family saga, but fails on almost every level. The story centres on the three Henderson brothers, all…

Lorraine Mariner - Furniture

Lorraine Mariner - Furniture

(4 stars)2 Apr 2009

(Picador) POETRY COLLECTION It’s a far cry from Bridget Jones, but there’s still something about Furniture that is likely to appeal to the chick-lit generation. British poet Lorraine Mariner’s first full-length poetry collection is suffused with…

Pat Mills and Various - ABC Warriors: The Meknificent Seven / The Shadow Warriors

Pat Mills and Various - ABC Warriors: The Meknificent Seven / The Shadow Warriors

(4 stars)2 Apr 2009

(Rebellion) SCI-FI COMIC More British sci-fi action from 2000AD with the ‘Atomic’, ‘Bacterial’, ‘Chemical’ robot warriors, built to withstand any crisis. Going right back to their debut in 1979, The Meknificent Seven shows the formation of the…

Burns Discovery

2 Apr 2009

A rare book which belonged to Robert Burns has been discovered in Alloway. Museum Curator David Hopes and local volunteers were preparing over 2,000 books and 400 artefacts for preservation and restoration treatment when they came across a book which…

StAnza 2009 - Patience Agbabi and Carol Ann Duffy

StAnza 2009 - Patience Agbabi and Carol Ann Duffy

24 Mar 2009

Two contrasting women poets with a fondness for the sonnet form electrified the audience at their prime time reading on Saturday night at StAnza. Patience Agbabi on her third visit to the festival read from her collection Bloodshot Monochrome…

Stanza 2009 - Poets of the Scottish Enlightenment and 18th Century Gaelteachd

StAnza 2009 - Poets of the Scottish Enlightenment and 18th Century Gaelteachd

24 Mar 2009

The complexity of the title and the juxtaposition therein were neatly represented in the two speakers, a St Andrews academic, Prof Robert Crawford and a Gallic speaking poet and actor, Angus Peter Campbell from the far west. Angus Peter Campbell was…

Benjamin Obler - Javascotia

Benjamin Obler - Javascotia

19 Mar 2009

It may be hard to recall now, but there was a time when coffee shops weren’t over-running the world, and certainly hadn’t even gained a foothold in Scotland. When Benjamin Obler travelled from his native Minnesota in 1994 to study Scottish Literature on…

Stanza 2009 gets off to a fiery start as Robert burns

StAnza 2009 gets off to a fiery start as Robert burns

19 Mar 2009

The launch of StAnza on the evening 19th March in the Byre Theatre, St Andrews was attended by those from seven to seventy. Festival Director Brian Johnstone reminded us of the modest start of StAnza in 1998, the distant Scots diapora was represented by…

Mark Millar & Various - 1985

Mark Millar & Various - 1985

(4 stars)19 Mar 2009

SUPERHERO COMICS Coatbridge’s Mark Millar has been in the upper echelons of comic book superstars since he started writing The Authority in 2000. This was swiftly followed by Ultimate X-Men while memorable subsequent projects have included Civil War…

Fantastic Four

Mark Millar & Various - Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest

(3 stars)19 Mar 2009

SUPERHERO COMICS Coatbridge’s Mark Millar has been in the upper echelons of comic book superstars since he started writing The Authority in 2000. This was swiftly followed by Ultimate X-Men while memorable subsequent projects have included Civil War…

Leander Kahney - Inside Steve's Brain

Leander Kahney - Inside Steve's Brain

(3 stars)19 Mar 2009

BUSINESS ANALYSIS Bill Gates may be king of the computer geeks, but Steve Jobs shall ever remain the electronic consumer’s guru. Jobs started Apple in the 80s from a garage full of spare parts and a desire to do something different. This book…

Also Published - 5 Debutants

19 Mar 2009

Sara Stockbridge - Hammer The 1980s muse of Vivienne Westwood delivers a novel set in Victorian London about a pickpocket called Grace Hammer. Chatto. Peter Akinti - Forest Gate Two East London teenagers make a suicide pact but when one survives he…

James Lasdun - It's Beginning to Hurt

James Lasdun - It's Beginning to Hurt

(3 stars)19 Mar 2009

SHORT STORIES A child is thought kidnapped only to be found playing nearby. A middle-aged man flirts with infidelity only to be consumed by guilt. An unfaithful husband is reprimanded by his wife but only about forgotten groceries. James Lasdun…

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

Geoff Dyer - Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

(4 stars)19 Mar 2009

EXISTENTIAL TALE Jeff Atman is a middle-aged freelance journalist with a wickedly humorous and cynical outlook on life. We meet him in London, frustrated and world-weary, as he prepares to embark on a press junket to Venice for the Biennale…

CE Morgan - All The Living

CE Morgan - All The Living

(3 stars)19 Mar 2009

RURAL DRAMA Focused on the life of young country girl, Aloma, All the Living is a melancholy depiction of love and family in an oddly timeless and isolated Kentucky farm. CE Morgan’s prose avoids grand descriptions that may befit the epic mountain…

Irregular

Irregular

19 Mar 2009

This is Joe Dunthorne. Some people out there have likened him to JD Salinger. Find out for yourself at Irregular, a new kinda club night run by Canongate Publishing, featuring live acts, poets, writers and DJs. Reading, performing and making merry…

Ian Rankin

StAnza

19 Mar 2009

Scotland’s International Poetry Festival sets out its stall in St Andrews with the usual brew of literary genius. This year’s highlights include Ian Rankin (pictured), Helen Dunmore, Carol Ann Duffy and First Minister Alex Salmond. Byre Theatre…

James Frey

Aye Write! - James Frey

5 Mar 2009

Truth is a slippery business, and those who deal in it should be careful. This was what Haruki Murakami was saying last month when he accepted the Jerusalem Prize, a controversial writers’ award. He opened his speech saying: ‘I have come to Jerusalem…

Toby Litt - Journey into Space

Toby Litt - Journey into Space

(4 stars)5 Mar 2009

LITERARY SCI-FI There’s a good track record of literary writers dabbling in science fiction, from Doris Lessing and Margaret Atwood to Iain Banks, and we can add to that fine company this remarkable and moving offering from Toby Litt. Having long…

Mari Strachan

Mari Strachan

5 Mar 2009

From The Catcher in the Rye to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, literature in English is littered with novelists attempting to capture the bold yet naive voice of adolescence. In her debut novel, The Earth Hums in B Flat, Welsh writer…

Alan Bennett - The Uncommon Reader

Aye Write! - Highlights

5 Mar 2009

Alan Bennett Everyone’s favourite northern talking head chats about The Uncommon Reader which speculates on the daring books HRH might flick through. Fri 6 Mar, 6pm. Willy Maley on Muriel Spark The man who co-edited the 100 Best Scottish Books Of…

Lola Jaye

Food for Thought - Lola Jaye

5 Mar 2009

This is a subject close to my heart. For a fantasy breakfast, a fry up. Organic mushrooms, scrambled eggs, bacon – with no fat on – and maybe a sausage. Nice, lovely cherry tomatoes, yum. Oh, and a glass of Coke. My ideal lunch? I got back from…

5 Paperback Debutants

5 Mar 2009

Edward Hogan - Blackmoor A dark tale of a close-knit mining community forced to abandon their homes while, ten years later, a child discovers exactly how his mother died there. Pocket. Lauren Liebenberg - The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and…

Joan Bakewell - All the Nice Girls

Joan Bakewell - All the Nice Girls

(3 stars)5 Mar 2009

WARTIME DRAMA Much like the time period it’s set within, the passion and intrigue in Joan Bakewell’s first novel hides behind a stodgy façade of 1940s wartime repression and tightly buttoned morals. Set in a prim girls’ school, the jolly hockey…

Walter Jon Williams - This Is Not a Game

Walter Jon Williams - This Is Not a Game

(2 stars)5 Mar 2009

TECHNO THRILLER If a novel set in a world of ‘greed, betrayal and social networking’ doesn’t sound especially exciting, that’s because it’s not. Walter Jon Williams might be highly acclaimed as a sci-fi writer, but This Is Not a Game engages a muddle…

Stona Fitch - Printer’s Devil

Stona Fitch - Printer’s Devil

(5 stars)5 Mar 2009

DYSTOPIAN NOVEL Cormac McCarthy set a new benchmark in dystopian fiction with his remarkable The Road, but this powerful and profound novel makes a good stab at matching it. In a future world blighted by post-apocalyptic environmental threats…

John Wagner, Alan Grant & Various - Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 12

John Wagner, Alan Grant & Various - Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 12

(3 stars)5 Mar 2009

SCI-FI COMIC Yet another huge Judge Dredd compendium from the pages of 2000AD. As per usual John Wagner and Alan Grant take up the writing reins of the ultimate lawman as he brings tough justice to the streets of sci-fi metropolis Mega City One.

Emmanuel Jal

Emmanuel Jal

5 Mar 2009

A former child soldier with the rebel army in Sudan’s civil war, Jal tells the story of his life through gospel rap as part of Aye Write! Bank of Scotland Book Festival. Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Tue 10 Mar.

Jason Donald

Choke Chain - Jason Donald

19 Feb 2009

‘I found it difficult torturing an eight-year-old boy, but I knew I had to.’ The couple at the table next to Jason Donald shoot him a sideways glance over the top of their coffee cups. He definitely doesn’t seem like the torturing kind. He carries on…

Richard Milward: Tall tale

Richard Milward: Tall tale

19 Feb 2009

Bedraggled old residential tower blocks are gradually being demolished in towns and cities across the UK. Yet, young Middlesbrough author Richard Milward has reversed the trend in his own small way, by erecting a sky-high tale from a solid stack of…

Daniel Depp

Daniel Depp - Loser’s Town

(2 stars)19 Feb 2009

(Simon & Schuster) CRIME DRAMA Daniel Depp’s claim to fame to date is being the half-brother of movie star Johnny and co-writing The Brave, which was nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or prize at Cannes in 1997. As a former Hollywood…

Douglas Fairbanks

Film Books Roundup

19 Feb 2009

There’s something of a publishing boom in books about cinema at the moment. Whether anyone is actually going to buy these books is obviously a moot point, the current mantra of publishers and university presses is ‘publish and be damned, libraries will…

Jason Donald

Hitlist - Books

19 Feb 2009

● Jason Donald Born in Dundee and raised in South Africa, Donald came back to Scotland to study creative writing at Glasgow. See the spectacular results at the launch of his debut novel, Choke Chain, a gripping tale of growing up in the threatening…

Nell Nelson

Food for Thought - Nell Nelson

19 Feb 2009

Eat Well With Nell has just been published, so I’ve got to look well at the moment! Food really plays a huge part in giving you loads of energy, clear wrinkle-free skin, strong nails and glossy hair and the recipes are all geared to making you look and…

Dirk Wittenborn - Pharmakon

Dirk Wittenborn - Pharmakon

(4 stars)19 Feb 2009

(Bloomsbury) FAMILY DRAMA Much like the characters within it, Dirk Wittenborn’s third novel defies classification. On the surface, it’s an epic family tale spanning five decades and three generations. One layer down, it’s a taut thriller rich…

Books - Also Published

19 Feb 2009

5 CRIME NOVELS Alex Gray Glasgow Kiss DCI Lorimer opens the file on a schoolteacher accused of rape who then goes missing. ‘The most dynamic Scottish detective since Rebus’ we’re told. Sphere. Natasha Cooper Life on the Edge Psychologist…

Tom Lee - Greenfly

Tom Lee - Greenfly

(2 stars)19 Feb 2009

(Harvill Secker) SHORT STORIES The publishers are to be applauded for taking a punt on a debut collection of short stories in these credit-crunched times, but the variable quality contained within these 179 small pages makes it a risk unlikely…

David Moody - Hater

David Moody - Hater

(3 stars)19 Feb 2009

(Orion) HORROR TALE The real story here isn’t one of hate, but of hard work and good fortune. Specifically, that of David Moody himself, the Halesowen author who has been self-publishing online and through print-on-demand for the best part of a…

Shakara: The Avenger

Robbie Morrison & Henry Flint - Shakara: The Avenger

(3 stars)19 Feb 2009

(2000AD/Rebellion) SCI-FI COMIC You certainly could never accuse writer Robbie Morrison of not starting Shakara on a grand scale, what with the obliteration of Earth in the very first panel and the last ever human being dead by the end of page…

Doug Johnstone

Doug Johnstone

19 Feb 2009

Scottish author/music-maker Doug Johnstone followed his debut Tombstoning with the equally affecting The Ossians, about a young band on a tour of Scotland As the paperback is launched, Johnstone rocks up to talk, drink and play a few tunes made…

Sex in the 21st century

Sex in the 21st century

5 Feb 2009

By now, you must have heard of Feuchtgebiete, the debut novel by 30 year old television presenter Charlotte Roche, routinely described in interviews as ‘Germany’s Davina McCall’. You know, the one that the press are up in arms about. The one with the 18…

Sex in the 21st century - Rude Britannia

Sex in the 21st century - Rude Britannia

5 Feb 2009

The Scots are at it like rabbits. 10,000 Scots go dogging every year. I’d find people at it on a Monday night in East Kilbride, next to a landfill site. Or we’d drive up some country lane and spot a white bottom moving up and down, lit by the light from…

Alan Moore - Lost Girls

Alan Moore - Lost Girls

5 Feb 2009

‘What we wanted to do with Lost Girls was to come up with a different form of pornography. We realised we had the ideas for something enormous and wonderful.’ Alan Moore, who’s widely considered to be the finest writer working in comics today and is…

Yaba Badoe - True Murder

Yaba Badoe - True Murder

(4 stars)5 Feb 2009

MYSTERY DRAMA Ever attempted to get inside the head of an adolescent girl? It’s a veritable minefield. Yaba Badoe achieves it effortlessly, however, in this tale of Ajuba, a Ghana-born youngster who rather unhappily moves to boarding school in Devon…

Marc Phillips - The Legend of Sander Grant

Marc Phillips - The Legend of Sander Grant

(3 stars)5 Feb 2009

FANTASY DRAMA Sander Grant is a giant, but that’s no surprise because he comes from a long line of giants. The Grants have been cattle ranchers in Texas since anyone can remember, and the locals have gotten used to their ten-feet-tall…

Darin Strauss - More Than It Hurts You

Darin Strauss - More Than It Hurts You

(3 stars)5 Feb 2009

SOCIAL DRAMA If you’re in the mood for a brisk, entertaining read, More Than It Hurts You isn’t it. If your interests lie in the inner workings of individuals and relationships, however, this is an in-depth study of exactly that. Josh, Dori, and…

Duncan Sarkies - Two Little Boys

Duncan Sarkies - Two Little Boys

(4 stars)5 Feb 2009

BLACK COMEDY Flight of the Conchords fans will take delight in this dark, twisted and idiotically funny novel from fellow Kiwi Duncan Sarkies, a sometime writer on that show. When the feckless Nige knocks down a Norwegian backpacker, he calls his…

Amy MacKinnon - Tethered

Amy MacKinnon - Tethered

(3 stars)5 Feb 2009

PSYCHODRAMA The most remarkable aspect of Tethered, Amy MacKinnon’s debut novel about a mortician drawn into the hunt for a missing child, is that the central character, Clara, an isolated, damaged woman, who devotes herself to beautifying the dead…

Also Published - 5 Popular Science Books

5 Feb 2009

David Bainbridge - Teenagers: A Natural History This vet from Cambridge writes about teens as though they were animals (in a nice way), providing biological, anthropological and cultural reasons to explain their behavioural patterns. Portobello.

Golden Hour – Paper Cinema

Golden Hour – Paper Cinema

5 Feb 2009

Be enchanted as Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World is brought to life by the Paper Cinema company. They will be using a cast of hand-drawn marionettes to act out a fairytale version of Professor Challenger’s expedition into the Amazon rainforest.

Barrowland

Scotland The Great - We are good

22 Jan 2009

Bin the shortbread tin! Trash those Runrig albums! Here are, in The List’s humble opinion, some real reasons why Scotland is worth shouting about

Homecoming TV Advert

Scotland The Great - Homecoming

22 Jan 2009

Four skinny boys stare up at a mountain. The mountain stares back at them. The hairiest one throws his arms out and roars: ‘Does it not make you proud to be Scottish?’; the prettiest one looks up from his vodka bottle, and hurls back bile. It’s been…

Chris Killen

Chris Killen - The Bird Room

22 Jan 2009

As with many readers of a certain young age, Chris Killen made formative connections with the cult fictions of Charles Bukowski, John Fante and Richard Brautigan. When he started writing seriously at the age of 18, though, he imitated his heroes with…

Robert Burns

Scotland The Great - Robert Crawford: The Bard

22 Jan 2009

‘One of my friends said to me that a new biography of Burns is the least necessary book in the world, but actually quite a lot of the previous biographies aren’t up to scratch, either because they aren’t all that well written or they didn’t have much…

Scottish open

Scotland The Great - Homecoming Highlights

22 Jan 2009

Scotland is calling everyone back for a homecoming and, without any sort of Scottish version of the Bat signal in sight, the country is hosting events throughout the year to get everyone celebrating their roots to coincide with Robert Burns’ 250th…

Norah Vincent

Norah Vincent - Voluntary Madness

(3 stars)22 Jan 2009

IMMERSION JOURNALISM ‘Immersion journalist’ Norah Vincent’s experience living undercover as a bloke for 18 months yielded a best-seller, Self-Made Man, but also triggered her depressive collapse and a frightening spell in a mental ward. She vowed to…

Peter Murphy - John the Revelator

Peter Murphy - John the Revelator

(4 stars)22 Jan 2009

FAMILY DRAMA That old chestnut, the dysfunctional family saga told from the point of view of a watchful youngster, is energetically revived here by debutant Peter Murphy. The titular character is John Devine, a shy adolescent who dreams of escape…

Chris Lavers - The Natural History of Unicorns

Chris Lavers - The Natural History of Unicorns

(3 stars)22 Jan 2009

MYTHICAL HISTORY Guess what? Unicorns never existed. And if you can bounce back from this early blow, Chris Lavers’ exploration of the unicorn myth actually makes for a strangely charming read. In arguing that although the soft white creature of our…

Kitty Sewell - Bloodprint

Kitty Sewell - Bloodprint

(2 stars)22 Jan 2009

PSYCHODRAMA Kitty Sewell’s second novel is decked out in the same suspense-fuelled livery as Ice Trap, her internationally successful debut. The often melodramatic storyline crams in tropical hurricanes, Eastern European gangsters, brutal sexual…

The Amazing Spider-Man 583

Mark Waid, Zeb Wells & Various - The Amazing Spider-Man 583

(3 stars)22 Jan 2009

COMICS/SUPERHERO It’s been in all the papers, President Barack Obama makes a guest appearance in Spider-Man. It’s yet more proof of how succinctly Obama has tapped into the zeitgeist and is as much of a cultural icon as he is a political…

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