Elisabeth: The Reluctant Empress Brigitte Hamann's 1981 authorised biography of the ill-fated Empress, Elisabeth of Austria, does not subscribe to the cult and mythology of Sisi. Instead, she tries to find the real woman, and to separate her from the rumour, speculation and romantic portrayals that have haunted her memory. If anything, she treats Elisabeth …
Category: Book Review
Jane's Juvenilia
I have been reading (re-reading actually) some of Jane Austen's early works. A few days ago, I blogged about her History of England, written when she was sixteen. That she meant the piece to be be humorous I have no doubt; the description of herself as a very partial, prejudiced and ignorant historian gives the …
Say No To Slavery
Today is Anti-Slavery Day. In spite of the work of William Wilberforce and many others to abolish it, slavery is still alive and well, and not only in the Third World. Across the planet, millions of children are forced to work for a pittance, or for nothing at all, some of them sold by their …
The Man in the High Castle
Philip K Dick's Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel is a novel without a hero or villain. Instead, the various characters mill around somewhat aimlessly, doing meaningless jobs (or none at all), consulting the I Ching and reading yet another novel called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Several are not what they seem or claim to be. …
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 …
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 …
In the Name of our Fathers
Turn of the Tide by Margaret Skea A Review The story is set in Scotland during the final years of the sixteenth century. Like Romeo and Juliet, it portrays the feud between two noble families whose names, by coincidence, begin with the same letters of the alphabet as Shakespeare's warring Veronese. Instead of the Montagues …
"Everything's going to be okay."
The Truth Will Out by Jane Isaac Well, everything isn't going to be OK for Eva, one of two main characters in Jane Isaac's new detective thriller. And it'll be especially not OK for her friend Naomi, who is murdered in the first chapter. Eva and Naomi travel from England to Italy to collect a …
Sex and Politics in Winter
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K le Guin Published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness is surely one of the best sci-fi novels ever written. I read it first in the seventies and now, about four decades later, it comes across as inventive and fresh as on that first reading. "Consider:" writes …
Magda Green Books 