Category: Book reviews
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Give the spirit of summer – whatever the time of year!
How many years of Jack in the Green? On the back of Keith Leech’s superb and lavishly illustrated record of Hastings’ biggest annual festival, he writes “It is now 25 years since the revival of the Hastings Jack in the Green in May 1983”. My daughter was a teenager, I think, when I first took…
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The Ball of the Future
Not yet born, not yet touched by man, it glows like a mercurial object. But I want to touch it. I want to caress the curvature of its sides and delve into its golden light. I think the inside must be huge and endless, like a stream without end, like an infinite well of possibility.…
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I know the date the world will end
Every generation, someone says that – and there are other favourite dramatic ideas that come round again and again. And when they do, people rally to them so eagerly. What is belief, that it can light such fires? Some get involved because they’re just longing to believe something. Some get involved because it’s such fun…
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20th Century Art in Hastings
This article, adapted from a piece in a former Hastings anthology, Visions of Hastings, explains how the Hastings Modern Art Beach Book came to be… text © 2010 K Green, pictures © 2010 K Reekie They threatened to build an art gallery on The Stade in Hastings and, despite a furious tide of resistance, they…
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Stocking Fillers for Adults
Let’s go back to the dawn of Earlyworks Press time for today’s ‘Christmas books’ blog. Back then, the press was very much Hastings-based, and the heart and soul of the membership was our Terry Sorby. ‘Porkies’ was very much his plan. A page-turning collection of sizzling jokes, rhymes and mini-stories, it’s just perfect for Christmas…
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The Map of Bihar
Sparkling with humour, singing with empathy and the pains of being human… A skilled, dexterous writer, Janet H Swinney explores her Anglo-Indian connections through this wide ranging and fascinating collection of stories – whether in a fashionable London suburb, urban India or an Edinburgh tenement, we see life chances sought, seized, squandered and subverted. There…
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Do not buy silly shorts
Of all the strategies you could employ, shorts in winter are the worst. ESPECIALLY if they look like this… Do not wear them In fact, do not wear shorts in winter at all… Read them Earlyworks Press has a fantastic back-list of high-quality short story collections. A well-written short story is the perfect companion by…
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From ancient fragments…
Words that evoke the real lives of long-ago and far-away people have a compelling fascination for most of us. I found this glimpse of a young man from ancient Greece (which was perfectly modern and normal to him) particularly satisfying. I even prefer the snatched lines to the fuller poems. Like phrases that catch your…
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Of men from quieter countries
***This title is now out of print.*** “As well as being a rattling good adventure, “Forest Brothers” is a story with a soul. It is clear that the author himself has a deep interest in land of Estonia and its history.” – from a review by S P Moss Author Geraint Roberts felt a connection…
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The Driftwood Tree
This friend of mine is the pickiest person I ever try to buy gifts for. He prefers to buy his own clothes, music and so on – because no-one else can ever guess right – and he owns a single shelf of books – he’s confident they are the best books he’ll come across in…
Kay Green 