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Publishing is a world of its own

Half an age ago, I wrote and self-published a book about an English rugby hero who lived in the early 20th Century. The experience gave me a brief and ultimately disappointing insight into the world of publishing. I guess there’s an extent to which every industry known to man is – or regards [...]

January 23, 2014 // 0 Comments

The Departure Solution – episode 2

The automatic door to the department slid apart and, from across the open plan office, Eleanor heard the sound of male footsteps in the reception area, the thud of a briefcase or back-pack hitting the floor and then a windcheater being placed upon a clothes-stand. Unusually, Mike, her [...]

January 2, 2014 // 0 Comments

Happy new year from Melanie Gay

I do not rate New Year’s Eve at all and am happy to spend the evening curled up with a good book. I finally ditched Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness with its extended and tedious description of his family. Enough already. I began the sequel to Morvern Callar by Alan Warner, These [...]

January 1, 2014 // 0 Comments

Ensuring we will remember them …

Tomorrow heralds the beginning of the year in which the world will be commemorating the First World War – originally called ‘The Great War’ – which began for Britain on 4th August 1914. Already the publication-rate of WW1 books, television documentaries and dramas has begun [...]

December 31, 2013 // 0 Comments

The Writer’s Voice

The relationship between the author and the subject in fiction is always interesting. It’s natural for the writer to draw on his/her personal experience, but I am more impressed by the novelist that can create a character some distance from their own.  This theme preoccupied me in the last [...]

December 28, 2013 // 0 Comments

A salute to two new historical biographies

In March 2009 the Shadow Home Affairs Minister Andrew Rosindell, Tory MP for Romford, introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Commons entitled the Teaching of British History in Schools Bill. His thrust was that the decreasing popularity of history as a choice of subject by pupils was [...]

December 17, 2013 // 0 Comments

The Departure Solution – episode 1

Clifford opened one eye. The digital radio clock on his bedside table flicked to 0213 as, somewhere in the mid-distance, the ‘bee-bah’ siren of either a police car or ambulance passed by. It took him a while to work out whether he’d been woken by the noise, the need for a trip to his bathroom [...]

December 14, 2013 // 0 Comments

Reading Matters

One of the most difficult decisions  for a reader is whether to continue reading book he/she is not enjoying.This rarely troubles a reviewer as to coin a phrase ” you asked me to review the book not read it.” I know of one respected reviewer a historian who has a template on the [...]

November 25, 2013 // 0 Comments

‘Hollywood Left and Right’ by Steven Ross

  This book could have been reviewed by Simon Campion Brown as its as much about politics as films . In it, Ross assesses the impact of 10 activists , 9 of which are Hollywood legends, Republican, Democrat, Independent . Though he does not impose his own ideology he states that the Republican [...]

November 18, 2013 // 0 Comments

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