TSS: Literary Pics: Culloden

Phrases such as ‘the dead are sleeping’ roll over the battlefield now as cannon blast and smoke did then. Thankfully the notion of ‘glorious’ has never been applied to these boys, or their deaths. Over there is where the British ordnance lined up. Right here is where the Highlanders stood and took it. I don’t have [...]

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Scottsboro – Ellen Feldman

The judges of this year’s Orange Prize have a penchant for history woven through with fictional threads.  The success of such double stranding has to be measured by the texture of the resulting cloth. On that basis Ellen Feldman’s Scottsboro is a resounding success.   The closely-woven fabric making fact and fiction virtually indiscernible. The narrator of this true [...]

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The Wilderness – Samantha Harvey

From the comments I’ve seen online Samantha Harvey’s debut novel chronicling the downward spiral of a man with Alzheimer’s appears to be the most difficult of the shortlist reads.  It was certainly the one with the least appeal to me.  So I took it with me on a recent business trip, the intention being that [...]

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TSS on TSS: Scottish Short Stories (and Poems)

T(he) S(hort) S(tory) on T(he) S(unday) S(alon) Short stories make excellent travelling companions.  They’re ideal for those 20 minute snatches between whatever went before and whatever’s coming next.  So when I went north a couple of weeks ago I took a clutch of short story anthologies with me. 1)  The Oxford Book of Scottish Short [...]

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The Invention of Everything Else – Samantha Hunt

I once heard tell of electric light bulbs  buried in the ground of the Arizona desert.  They were not plugged in, nor were they connected to any wires but they were glowing.   I wrote it off as  urban myth.  Thanks to Samantha Hunt’s The Invention of Everything Else  I now know that tale probably relates to the experiments [...]

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TSS: The Day Isle Martin transmuted ….

from this …..       to this.   The intention was to locate the first day of the Ullapool book festival on Isle Martin. The elements had other ideas and it was decided that it would not be condusive to our enjoyment to ferry us across to the island to conduct our literariness in gales with a [...]

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The Road to Ullapool

After cancelling 3 times previously, due to bad weather, I bravely ventured forth to the Ullapool Book Festival last week.   It’s a 5-hour drive north through the mountains and history of Scotland.  Fancy a trip?  Buckle yourselves in.  Off we go. 5 minutes from the motorway, we’re soon speeding up the M74. Onto the M73 and 40 minutes [...]

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Home – Marilynne Robinson

I have been consciously avoiding Marilynne Robinson.  I would react the same way to any author who chooses such an unappealing word, Housekeeping (doomed for its associations with housework), as the title of her first novel.  However, her third novel, Home, read as part of this 2009 Orange shortlist readathon, has vaporised all prior prejudice and preconception.   As I have not read Gilead, [...]

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Mari Strachan live on Lizzy’s Literary Life

Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome Mari Strachan to Lizzy’s Literary Life. For the next two hours, Mari will be here to chat and answer your questions about her own literary life and, of course, her debut novel The Earth Hums in B-Flat.  Mari’s novel was included on the Amazon Rising Stars promotion [...]

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On your marks …. get set

Mari is here – she (and I) are just enjoying a light supper.  We’ll be refreshed and ready to kick off the live Q&A at 19:00 ……

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