celticman's blog

‘I feel that I deserved to die…I’m worthless.’ There are no happy endings here. The crimes these fathers and mothers have committed are against themselves. An infant son or daughter died, slowly cooked, strapped in the backseat of their car, because the father or mother got distracted and forgot they were there. It happens in the United States around 30 to 40 times a year and the number is growing. I’m reminded of another statistic from a bygone...

God always gets the best lines such as ‘before you were I am,’ that’s why he’s God. If you don’t do God, try some Sylvia Plath, ‘I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart, I am, I am, I am.’ I’d never heard of Maggie O’Farrell, didn’t know she existed until her name appeared on the front cover, plugging another book by a Scottish author, Damian Barr. I hadn’t heard of Barr either and for some reason I thought O’Farrell was...

I enjoyed this memoir. It reminded me a bit of Kerry Hudson, Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma . Only it wasn’t Tony Hogan that stole Damian Leighton Barr’s mum but Logan the plumber. Glen is one of those taciturn men that does twelve-hour shifts in the Craig (Ravenscraig Steelwork) and says things like ‘make your bed and lie in it’. He makes good money and they are one of the first in the street to own a colour telly...

I think I’ve read this good book before. I get that sometimes. Words wash over me and through me and I’m not really reading, although I am. For the record, I read ‘The International Bestseller’ a few weeks ago, again, or not again (as this might have been the first time). Just to remind myself, where I look at words every day, Lorna Byrne sees angels. (I don’t know if Angels is a proper noun, or is it a bit like cows or sheep? No capital letter...

This is a short enough book to read in one, longish, gulp. It begins with an admission Matt Haig makes about 2014. Thirteen years ago I knew this couldn’t happen. I was going to die, you see. Or go mad. There was no way I would still be here. Sometimes I doubted I would even make the next ten minutes… One of the key symptoms of depression is to see no hope. No future. A book about depression need not be depressing. We all nod at the statistics;...

I spend more of my life reading than any other activity, but then, promptly, forget everything I’ve read. I’m useless. So, of course, I’m interested in new writers. Unfortunately, I also do a bit of writing. There’s a biblical quote for every circumstance. ‘For where your treasure is, your heart will be also’. Sally Rooney is one of the new big things, Normal People was long-listed for The Man Booker Prize. I never claimed to be normal, but it’s...

I bought this book when it first came out. I’ve picked it up and put it down a few times. It’s got an impressive list of broadsheets such as The Guardian wo proclaim it ‘a big, page turning, globe-trotting thriller’ and a leading author of a dystopian future, A Handmaid’s Tale , Margaret Atwood, calling it ‘Electrifying’. I read most of the 339 pages, missing out chapters, here and there, and scooting to the end, which I knew was going to be...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0004gpl/miriams-dead-good-adventure-series-1-episode-1 There’s a simple rule in life, don’t get old and don’t get fat, which becomes a commandment on television. Presenter Miriam Margolyes is the exception to the rule. She looks a bit like Grotbags, the witch, but without the green hair. Margolyes has become something of the flavour of the month on BBC, a kind of low-rent-a-gob, fat and Jewish and a lesbian...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00049b1/climate-change-the-facts The facts are global warming is taking place now and the concerted action to limit it 1.5 degrees centigrade by reducing fossil fuel emissions, which was agreed by the Paris Accord, 2015, looks highly unlikely to happen. ‘What we do now will profoundly affect the next thousand years,’ David Attenborough tells us. Fossil fuel companies have already been working hard to smear...

Cuckoo Song is the second Frances Hardinge novel I’ve read. The other was The Lie Tree . Their target audience is Young Adults and Children. I’ve not been that for fifty years, but I guess we’re all children at heart. And Hardinage is a terrific and must-read author. The question of who we are becomes what we are? Doppelgangers and memory is spliced with folklore, fairy tales and warped visions of reality. Violet, Sebastian’s left-behind fiancée...