(SF and the Human Imagination) by Margaret Atwood A review In this non-fiction work, dedicated to her fellow sci-fi and fantasy writer, the late Ursula Le Guin, Margaret Atwood talks about the literary influences of her childhood. A series of essays and book reviews of works that have inspired her, In Other Worlds takes the …
Category: Humour
Book Review: Measuring the World
by Daniel Kehlmann (Die Vermesserung der Welt) This novel is a double biography of two of the giants of science, Carl Friedrich Gauss and Alexander von Humboldt, fast-paced and told with irreverent humour. 'It was both odd and unjust, said Gauss .... that you were born into a particular time and held prisoner there whether …
Something Nasty in the Woodshed
I was reminded just the other day on going through my 'Reader' of this piece, which I wrote some time ago. As this is one of my very favourite books, I thought I would re-post my review today! Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons 'You would expect, by all the laws of probability, to find …
Maddaddam
by Margaret Atwood '.... [A]nyone who liked smelling daisies, and having daisies to smell, and eating mercury-free fish, and who objected to giving birth to three-eyed infants via the toxic sludge in their drinking water was a demon-possessed Satanic minion of darkness, hell-bent on sabotaging the American Way and God's Holy Oil, which were one …
Fun With (German) Grammar
Christian Morgenstern - - taking the "P" out of poetry * Now for something totally different! A little while ago, on a visit to Germany, a friend introduced me to a poet whose work seems to defy attempts to translate it into English. His name was Christian Morgenstern (the poet, not the friend) and he …
F is for ……. friendship
Screw Friendship by RG Manse I picked up this book on a recommendation from WordPress. The main protagonist of this story, set in present-day Edinburgh, is Rosy, an eighteen-year-old student at Heriot Watt University. Rosy has never known her biological father, Frank Friendship, but has grown up with her mum Irene and step-dad Findlay. She's …
War – What War?
Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie A Review 'Beer does not taste like itself unless it is chasing a dram of neat whisky down the gullet, preferably two drams.' It is 1943, and war with Hitler is dragging on. The inhabitants of the two islands of Todday, like the other peoples of Great Britain, are suffering …
