Ernest Hemingway
On our last day in Cuba, having visited Hemingway’s home – left exactly as it was when he’d been there – we chanced upon the launch of Ernest Hemingway’s Havana at the Buena Vista...
Category: Review
3AM: Wonder, Paranoia and the restless night – Angela Kingston
I met Angela in about 2013/4. We were both teaching. In those days, even lecturers at some universities were required to undetake a teaching course. Angela was new to teaching art curation and I...
Oh for a princess…
Little did I know that the day I started reading Sue Hampton’s Pomp and Circumstances (2012) that the ‘breaking news’ which would appear on my phone was the announcement by the Duke and Duchess...
The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough
Do you remember The Thorn Birds? I remember watching the television series, well my lasting image of it is Richard Chamberlain dressed in purple robes but more than that I cannot tell you. Recently,...
On limericks – Arnie Wilson
Limericks. You can view them as silly, irrelevant and infantile nonsense. Or as witty, nicely balanced and subtle jokes. For me it all depends on the punchline. And yet when the father of limericks,...
Big Name Hunting – Arnie Wilson
This is a book about celebrities – a group of people completely outside my sphere of knowledge. So, how did TSL come to re-publish Arnie Wilson’s recollections? Eagles – A chance connection between two...
Inside the mind of a crime writer
On 30 August 2017, I attended an evening with Tess Gerritsen of Rizzoli and Isles fame. Having watched most of the series, before my recent phase of not watching television, I was intrigued to...
Insight into an actor’s world – Antony Sher
I first came upon Antony Sher when he was performing Titus Andronicus in South Africa. His frustration at South Africa’s attitude to Shakespeare I took to be a rant especially as we’d been to...
The hare with the amber eyes – Edmund de Waal
I should have enjoyed this book. So many people recommended it and it contained a combination of factors I enjoy in a book: fact, linking the past with the present, World War 1, biography,...
A wonderful story teller – Agatha Christie
Ms Christie featured in our Lady Sleuth theme first. Then I happened upon a review by an incredible young person I know and couldn’t resist another feature on Agatha Christie. I have been planning...