Posts Tagged ‘reviews’
A history of warships built on the River Clyde in photos
Following on from his book on Clydebank Battlecruisers, Ian Johnston has written another using archive photographs showing the ships built by John Brown, a name that is synonymous with shipbuilding on the Clyde. The storied shipyard built some of the finest and most famous ships of the 20th century. Johnston has laid the book out…
Read MoreThe man who saved the army – without holding rank
Sir John Pringle saved the lives of countless soldiers without ever commanding a battalion. This well researched book by a fellow physician tells the story of how his changes to hospital management, discipline and hygiene successfully reduced the numbers of deaths from diseases such as typhus and dysentry amongst the troops. Saving The Army: The…
Read MorePast and present collide in a thriller for teens
Sci-fi meets pre-history in Silver Skin, an epic adventure of a time-traveller, Rab, from the far future, who accidentally ends up in Skara Brae, Orkney during the Neolithic period. Throughout this story aimed at teenagers, Lennon paints a vivd picture of the pre-historic landscape and allows the readers to travel back in time. There is…
Read MoreCelebrating Scotland through some hearty eats
I like this book, despite its deeply dodgy design and layout and despite the fact that much of the photography looks dated. I can look past this because it is a book filled with the wonderful celebrations which take place around Scotland and some great recipes to see you through a year of feasting and…
Read MoreA cracking psychological thriller
In this psychological thriller, Breakers, 17-year-old Tyler is the glue that is holding his family together – just. Living in a deprived Edinburgh tower block, with drug addict mum and little sister, Tyler is coerced into a life of crime by his older half-brother, Barry. In a botched-up job, Barry stabs the wife of a…
Read MoreMacCrimmon pipes up for a fun children’s book
Young MacCrimmon and the Silver Chanter is a comical children’s story tells the story of a piping school and the struggle of a young pupil, Donald MacCrimmon, to master the instrument. When a Fairy Queen steps into help, she does so with a warning, presenting Donald with a life changing dilemma. Based on the tales…
Read MoreA passionate affair in The Sound of the Hours
Occupation during the Second World War in Barga, Tuscany, turns plans for the future of 17-year-old Vita on their head, in The Sound of the Hours by Karen Campbell. The arrival of Frank Chapel, a young black US soldier, finds the Scottish-Italian heroine falling deeply in love. The vividly portrayed characters embark on a passionate…
Read MoreWhat has made Room 101 and Big Brother normal
Author Dorian Lynskey believes that every generation finds aspects of George Orwell’s 1984 that resonate with their own political times. Today we have the normalisation of lies and what the Trump administration has called ‘alternative facts’. Another major issue anticipated by the book, published in 1949 and now in its 70th anniversary year, is the…
Read MoreYou can have your Cake – and read it
Refrigerator Cake is an enjoyable, humorous and contemporary collection of short stories from young Falkirk-based author, Dickson Telfer. With subject matter which guides the reader through subjects as diverse as teaching the class from hell to a 92-year-old man’s quest for peace, this is not one for the fainthearted, but Telfer’s humour will resonate with…
Read MoreCelebrating the life of a Scottish painter
Edwin G Lucas (1911-1990) was born and spent his whole life in Edinburgh. A prolific painter, he was heavily influenced by the surrealists, a style he blended with his own individual methods to produce colourful and fascinating paintings. The book reveals the little-known story of the Scottish artist who stopped painting for almost thirty years…
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