TSS: Sweet-toothed indulgences

This talk of lemon polenta cake and cream teas is addictive and reminds me that I never reviewed the book I read for dessert as part of the Well-Seasoned challenge. Let’s put that right now.
It is now two months since I read the book and the reason why this review is so delayed is that [...]

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Catholics – Brian Moore

Brian Moore lost his Catholic faith as a young man and proceeded to carve a literary career out of it.  In the 1950’s he wrote The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1955), in the 1980’s Black Robe (1985).  In between there was Catholics (1972). 
With only 102 pages, Catholics is very much a novella, easily read in one sitting.  In 1972, however, it was judged a novel and was [...]

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The Great Victorian Collection – Brian Moore

James Tait Black Memorial Prize 1975
Governor General’s Award for Fiction (English) 1975
 At last – a Brian Moore novel that was the bride, not the bridesmaid.  Though I must say I am somewhat surprised that it was The Great Victorian Collection that bagged the awards.  How so?
Take the premise:  “When Anthony Maloney woke up one day [...]

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I am Mary Dunne – Brian Moore

Memento ergo sum – I remember, therefore I am.  A memory from a Latin class flags up the theme of Moore’s 6th novel and  Mary Lavery’s identity crisis becomes explicit when she forgets her name in the hairdresser’s.  She’s 32,  already into her third marriage.  She has not been Mary Dunne since she was 20.  But in [...]

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Lies of Silence – Brian Moore

As an expatriate of long standing Brian Moore felt that younger authors with in-situ experience would probably write about the troubles in Northern Ireland in a more meaningful way than he. Then he was caught in a bomb scare and found himself evacuated from a hotel with a coach-load of French tourists   ….. The next thing said tourists find themselves in the midst of a [...]

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The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne – Brian Moore

Rarely does a paperback cover hint so atmospherically at a novel’s content as this one.  A middle-aged woman,  stands alone, staring out to sea.  Atmosphere in droves.  Loneliness …. desperation …. waste.
Waste?  It’s the psychology behind the red suit.  The woman wants to make a mark.  She wants to live.  She’s not ready to retire into the background.  She’s still has hope but she’s fading [...]

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Book to Movie: The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

 It was bound to happen sometime and it has with my third and final book to movie challenge title.  The film has really, really annoyed me …..
Not that it’s a bad film.    Maggie Smith and Bob Hoskins together as Judith and Madden are very good indeed.  Maggie Smith won the BAFTA for best actress and the pair [...]

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Black Robe – Brian Moore

Graham Greene once described Brian Moore as “my favourite living writer”.  Moore’s death in 1999 means I can’t do the same but I can confirm that he is rapidly ascending the ranks of my all-time favourites. He must have something special for I kept reading even though Black Robe is a tale of full of atrocity and foul language.  Not my usual [...]

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The Magician’s Wife – Brian Moore

In 1856 Napoleon III sent Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin to Algeria to frighten the natives with a display of “magical” power so astonishing that they would be discouraged from starting a holy war against the French colonial power.  One of those stranger-than-fiction facts that Moore uses to full effect in his novel The Magician’s Wife (1997).
Robert-Houdin is fictionalised as Henri Lambert, who [...]

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