Debo - An Obituary Deborah Vivien Mitford Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, who died a few days ago at 94, was according to common opinion, one of the nicest of the six Mitford sisters. Only Pamela, the quiet, private sister can be regarded as her equal in that respect. I never met any of them …
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.
Dan's Hymn to Dante
Inferno by Dan Brown In his latest novel, Dan Brown sends his unlikely hero, Harvard professor Robert Langdon on a romp round Florence. Accompanied by Sienna Brooks, a young doctor with an IQ of 208, Langdon embarks on a quest to find and destroy a deadly virus. Planted by a misguided idealist Bertrand Zobrist, the …
Summer is Fading Fast
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With …
Better Together!
Scottish Independence Entzwei' und gebiete! Tüchtig Wort; Verein' und Leite! Bess'rer Hort. (JW von Goethe 1749-1832) Goethe's words, roughly translating into English as 'Unite and lead is a much better cry than divide and rule', have been much quoted during the past two hundred years. The motto is not one, it …
It's Not Harry Potter
The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling The death of Barry Fairbrother, a leading citizen of Pagford, a small town "in the West Country", leaves a vacancy on the parish council. Pagford residents are lined up on two sides of a dispute about the future of a crime-soaked estate known as the Fields, and the composition …
Mataoka – Epilogue
"The real stories of John Smith and Pocahontas have seldom been fully told, much as they are a part of the popular imagination." Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac A Review I discovered this novel while researching Mataoka and the origins of the colony of Virginia. Informative and entertaining as historical accounts are, they do not always …
10 Great Quotations from George Bernard Shaw on His Birthday
A man of great wit indeed! My favorite is "Do not do unto others....."
Lost Edinburgh
"In growing from a huddle of huts round a fortress on a volcanic rock into an international and cosmopolitan city, Edinburgh has had to change." Not only is Edinburgh one of my favourite cities but it's one I thought I knew really well - that is, until I picked up the book my sister gave …
First Anniversary
It scarcely seems possible but it's already a year since I posted my first book review on WordPress! It seems I've written 54 blogs since then. 36 of them have been book reviews, including 10 "classics" for the Classics Club. Since I'm committed to read and review 50 of these classic novels in five years …
Mataoka's Last Journey
'Tis enough that the child liveth.' Rebecca's Tale (Part Three) by Andrew G Lockhart Wahunsenacawh did not attend his daughter’s wedding. Instead, he sent a brother-in-law and two nephews ‘to see the manner of the mariage and to doe in that behalfe what they were requested'. According to some accounts, he also sent Mataoka a …
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