celticman's blog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_HG_76 We know Britain wins the war. In the same way we can’t know that Ukraine will win its war. Hindsight blinds us. Angus Constam takes the reader back to a period in winter 1941 when it was all bad news. Nazi Germany had occupied most of Europe and Channel Islands. Britain was next on the Hitler’s list. The Royal Navy had been brought home to defend British shores. Despite Germany’s mass investment in a...

Vintage Classics has republished Babi Yar. A.Anotoli (Kuznetsov) describes Babi Yar as ‘a document in the form of a novel’. What the author means by that is in the first line of the first chapter, Ashes (after the Preface): ‘This book contains nothing but the truth.’ Kuznetzov was born in 1929 in Kyiv. His mother was Ukrainian. His father a Soviet who was relocated when the Germans invaded, 21 st September 1941. As a twelve-year old, he lived in...

I wasn’t sure I’d finish this book. I’m snobbish enough to continue reading because the author’s previous novel had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. There’s more than one way to being wrong. At the end of The House of Doors , I felt that flush of acknowledgment of being in such fine company. I’d need to look out for Tan Twan Eng’s other books. Let me explain my foolishness as the class hatred of the lies and propaganda of Downton Abbey and...

The Journey Home is a short book, self-published by Debbie Fanning. In subscript at the bottom of the cover is the message she wants to convey after being raped by two men on Burns Night, 25 th January 2003, when she was twenty-one: ‘Finding my voice and taking my power back after a devastating assault’. ‘ I’m OK. You’re OK .’ That’s the name of a philosophy and a way of listening and doing. It’s one of those convenient lies. Rape and brutality...

Where the Crawdads Sing is Delia Owens’ debut novel. A New York Times Bestseller and a Reece’s Book Club pick. Although this is Owen’s first novel, she is also a bestselling author of non-fiction as a ‘wildlife scientist’ in Africa. She lives in Idaho. Write what you know. It’s no great leap to imagine the young Kya, ‘the Marshgirl’. Her brutal coming-of-age marked by oneness and appreciation of the natural world not being far from what Owens’...

Part One of The Optimists, begins with a quote from Fergal Keane, Season of Blood . It was Rwanda, of course, Keane was referring to. The same place politicians such as Nigel Farage want to send refugees in the British Isles. The same place Fergal Keane admitted broke him. Here we have the first line: ‘After the massacre at the church in N—Clem Glass flew home to London.’ Clem Glass, an international photographer, is equally broken. A candidate...

I picked Teresa up last week, Thursday. She'd her brother's funeral today. She was carrying two plastic bags, stuff from the Coop and Jimmy’s medication from the chemists. She stood waving her arms, standing at the clock across from Dalmuir Library. I tooted the horn and parked at the traffic lights. ‘I thought you were a taxi,’ she said. Teresa is scheduled at the end of July to go for a cataract operation. Then she said I was an angel. I’ve...

Barbara Kingsolver thanks Charles Dickens in ‘Acknowledgement’ for writing David Copperfield. Similarly, I’d need to thank Book Club Mom. I hadn’t heard of Kingsolver, but her blog made me want to read the book. 546 pages, what we used to call epics. But for Charles Dickens, with his newspaper serialisation, Copperhead would be labelled a short story. Dickens had a wonderful handle on people’s names. Like epigrams, he matched them to his...

https://player.stv.tv/summary/secrets-of-the-bay-city-rollers I grew up with the Bay City Rollers. My older brother, Sev, was meant to look a bit like Les McKeon, the lead singer. The latter died in 2021, aged 65. My brother about thirty years before that. My sister Phyllis had Bay City Roller pictures on her wall. All the girls did. Wee Emily, my brother’s girlfriend, had the cut-off tartan trouser and scarves and even a kiss-me-quick hat with...

Georgio Pellegrini has an epiphany. He’s like to open a decent Italian restaurant. One that would allow him to blend in with those that doesn’t worry about money, respectability, or the need to pay the cops to keep them off their back. He’ll just need to pull one last heist. Pellegrini has to factor in being double-crossed. Formaggio, and the insider who provided details of the armoured truck, and how much loot it is carrying, can easily be...