This is a bleak book which ends on a barely qualified note of endurance persisting over adversity. It is a competently written book with vivid characterizations. Waldman’s skill in depiction of the desperate straits of a forlorn man and woman is compelling and carries the reader from beginning to end effortlessly.
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of Beating for Light by Geoff Akers
This is an extremely well-written and worthwhile work that will appeal especially to those readers who have found tragedy and beauty in Sebastian Faulks’Birdsong or Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy. Like these other novels, Beating for Light makes us realise that war – with all its waste, horror and futility – has, too, a human face.
A review of The God of Spring by Arabella Edge
I thoroughly enjoyed and was totally swept up in the world of this marvellous story and can’t wait to see what Edge produces next. Highly recommended to all who love art, are engaged in art-making, or who have an interest in moral and philosophical issues to do with the exploitation of life in art’s service.
A review of The White Hands and Other Weird Tales by Mark Samuels
Certainly it is clear that, for Samuels, horror fiction is cerebral as well as visceral, and provides an opportunity for metaphysical speculation. And often it is not suspense, the vexed question of “what happens next?”, but rather seeing what use the author makes of his ideas that enthrals the reader. An example par excellence of this is “Mannequins in Aspects of Terror”, which takes as its subject a visit to an artist’s installation.
A review of Seeing by José Saramago
This is a vigorously told novel. There is wit in abundance, but Saramago never shirks the truth. This is a grim tale and Saramago’s focus, for all his pretence of indirection, is unerring and relentless. As a testament to our sad times and as a work of genius it is indispensable to the judicious and discriminating reader
A review of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
Reviewed by Bob Williams Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday Harcourt 2007, ISBN 978-0-15-101276-3, $24.00, 336 pages Paul Torday, born in 1946, waited a long time before he wrote this, his first novel, and did a bang-up job…
A review of The Bright Eyed Mariner by William Lambe
To say anymore, would give away the story, so I’ll stop now and encourage readers to learn for themselves the fate of these rich and varied characters. The author could have let the captain slide in a one-dimensional character but instead shows the man with all his doubts and his extreme wonder at how his life unfolds. Gerda too, is more than just a lusty female bent on conquering her man. Her delightful personality unfolds like a flower under the attention of a man finally worth of her charms. The story is told in the first person and so we never learn the captain’s name, but this fact in no way spoils the novel. Sprinkled throughout the book are lines from the poem The Ancient Mariner.
A review of Her Mouth Looked Like a Cat’s Bum by Matthew Ward
You wouldn’t want these friends for dinner, but you might like a laugh at their expense. The wry sardonic humour that fills these pages isn’t entirely unpleasant, though it might be a little sour. Her Mouth Looked Like a Cat’s Bum is an original, interesting take on a world you don’t want to be living in; a funny (at times), racy, and disorientating descent into Hades.
A review of Chess Facts and Fables by Edward Winter
There are many diagrams of chess positions, and many photographs and line drawings of famous and little-known players, and these add to the value of the book. For anyone with an interest in chess history, this volume is a wonderful treasure trove. It is perfect for browsing, whether one happens to be in one’s library or on one’s lavatory.
A review of Virginia Woolf by Julia Briggs
This book dwells necessarily on the Bloomsbury group, a subject of so many books that saturation impairs the urgency of its interest, but she surmounts this as much as possible by an emphasis on Woolf. She has written a model of what good literary criticism should be. This is an excellent book to add to the collection of any reader who requires a useful and intriguing book on a fascinating but often elusive writer.