RARELY do I find a book having such a deep and personal impact as this moving and tender story. Its effect lingered long after the final word had been read; reviving cherished memories, plucking at the heartstrings. Poignant moments from earlier days were relived, reflected upon with a mixture of sadness and joy. The details…
NAH, it can’t be that good. Surely not. Must be because its cover has a celebrity’s name taking top billing as the author. Another example of vanity publishing, selling by popularity rather than content. Probably ghost written too. Isn’t that how it goes; win the public’s heart through the telly or sport then cash in…
Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #10 REMEMBER those bruising, knuckle-skinning, foot-tripping days of yore; every man and woman (and all in between) for themselves; no holds barred as the doors slid open and the mass hurtled forward at the opening of the Boxing Day sales? Or the elbow-shoving, back-pushing skirmishes as …
Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #9 NO doubt the nation’s heart has gone out to another victim of the pandemic. Fortunately it is Random Acts of Kindness Week (yes, really) and help may soon be on its way to this poor soul. There are likely numerous others in much the same…
AS a person of interest, Meaghan Markle usually rates way down the list of those spotlighted celebrities who engage my attention. Almost off the scale; at the lowest end. As I feel she is considered by most people apart from those sad sacks to whom all gossip is more precious than oxygen; the mainstay of…
Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #8 Feb 2021: THE Pisa-like bedside tower of books looked like toppling before I got around to recording some of its content. It was only thanks to some extended sessions of lockdown reading that it has been whittled down to a less perilous height. Sadly it…
Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #7 Jan 2021: I HAVE been on a bit of a downer. Today, however, I am showing a degree of positivity by using one of the slightly less pessimistic of the several D-words available to describe the recent state of mind and body. Yesterday the temptation…
Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #6 Jan 2021: THE stable door is now shut tight. Bolted and barred. Triple locked and with no sign of a key or code. And unoccupied. The horse it once contained, an unruly beast at the best of time, seized its pre-lockdown moment and is…
Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #5 Jan 2021: WHAT is it that they don’t understand? Are the almost 100,000 deaths so beyond comprehension that they believe them to be a total fiction? Do the BBC’s recent series of excruciating hospital scenes unnerve them so much that they dismiss them as some…
ONE of the many pleasures gained from reading crime fiction is being plunged deep into places never previously visited. Or, if having been there only superficially as a mere transient, now getting down and dirty with the locals. No longer passing through but going well and truly off piste. The crime novel as a Baedecker….