The Open Road by M.M. Holaday [I am grateful to the author for sending me an advance reading copy of her novel, to be published at the beginning of April] ‘ “It’s so big out there, it’s like the ocean. The sky is huge and the land goes on forever. You’ve got to see it …
Author: Andrew G Lockhart
My name is Andrew Lockhart and I grew up in Coatbridge, Scotland. I studied at Glasgow University. After spending three decades in planning, statistics and international sales and marketing, I am now an author, family historian and owner of Magda Green Books. Apart from writing (and reading great books) and blogging, my other interests are science, music of all sorts, and traveling the world.
Affairs of the Heart
The Gift by Louise Jensen 'Nearly six months ago, someone died so I can live.' After suffering a virus infection that damaged the muscles of her heart, Jenna needed a transplant. Now she is recovering. She ditches her boyfriend Sam and, against the advice of her doctors and her friends, is planning to visit the …
The Devil's in the Detail
Rather Be The Devil by Ian Rankin 'Darryl Christie's closed eyes were puffy and bruised, his nose swollen with dried blood caking the nostrils. A foam head brace had been rigged up with further support around his neck.' Set in Edinburgh like most of Rankin's stories, Rather Be The Devil brings together all of the …
Elinor and Marianne
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen A Review In Austen's (probably) first full-length novel, the Dashwood family are happy in their home at Norland Park. However, the property is entailed to a son of Mr Dashwood's first marriage and when he dies, Mrs Dashwood and their daughters, Elinor and Marianne are obliged to leave. Elinor …
Foundation's End
At the end of last year, I promised to finish my series of blogs on the Foundation books of Isaac Asimov, so here goes! Asimov wrote seven Foundation novels altogether, the first three appearing first as short stories in the 1940s and 50s. See https://bookheathen.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/history-of-the-future/ He followed those in the 1980s with two more - …
The Travelling Companion
A Short Story by Ian Rankin I picked this little book up in a shop in Australia; I hadn't seen it for sale in the UK [though I see it's been mentioned on Goodreads]. It's not an Inspector Rebus story of course, but if you have a few minutes to spare it's a good read. …
Mind Games
Chains of Blood and Steel by Karen Gray A Review Chains of Blood and Steel is the second book in Karen Gray's Saga of Thistle and Roses. Based loosely on the Anglo-Scottish feuding of the late Middle Ages, the stories are however set in a futuristic imaginary world of the 27th century. The world we …
A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L'Engle 'It was a dark and stormy night ...' With the first sentence of her junior sci-fi novel A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle dares to challenge the publishing establishment. Even in 1960, when she wrote it, and 1962, when it was published, L'Engle must have known the extent to which the sentence …
The Desperation of a Public Library
I too raise a glass to Chuck Finley. Perhaps if he (they) hadn't been quite so obvious he (they) might have got away with it. maybe 1,001 books?
It's 2017!
I would like to wish A Happy New Year to my followers and to all fellow bloggers worldwide! As some of you already know, I've been away with my wife in Australia for most of the past month, soaking up some much-needed sunshine. Now that I'm back - and cold - I have some catching …
Magda Green Books 