Book Reviews
There’s a reason book clubs are popping up everywhere at the moment. There’s nothing like an intelligent online conversation with your friends. |
Here is an opportunity to join our book club and share your views on some of the books you’ve read. More to come on this page. Click the book reviews and comments link below to begin the conversation.
We feature one book per month in this place of prominence. Older reviews can be found by scrolling down the page and clicking on the appropriate writer’s name
Book Review – May 2022 – On The Run In Siberia
Rane Willerslev was a young anthropologist doing field work in eastern Siberia soon after the collapse of Communism. The people were the Yukhagir, who are few in number, and hunt and live in ways that are still quite traditional. Their main source of income is the...
Book Review – April 2022 – The Medicine Wheel
Barry has created a meditation on meaning, a most interesting discourse on the Medicine Wheel tempered with Jung and other interesting philosophers, matching and mixing and extracting clarity and knowledge. I hear Barry as I read, his voice is clear and direct, there...
Dawn Spence – Book Recommendation – March 2022 – The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
"Every man who is not helping to bring about a better state of affairs for the future is helping to perpetuate the present misery and is therefore the enemy of his own children. there is no such thing as being neutral: We must either help or hinder" (Unknown) ...
Stephen Kearney – Book Review – February 2022 – What I learned losing a million dollars
Review byStephen Kearney Fairly early on in life Jim Paul began to notice something: he was a special guy, a cut above the rest and brighter than most. He always seemed to be rewarded for ignoring convention, either through ignorance – he didn’t even know the rules...
Stephen Kearney – Book Review November 2021- Ireland and the EU Post Brexit
Ireland and the EU Post Brexit by Ray Bassett first published 2020 Review by Stephen Kearney Ireland and the EU Post Brexit is a very disturbing book. In fact, I would say it is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read. Let me make it clear; this...
Paul Pickering – Book review – January 2022 -Message From a Star by Michael J Clark
You will not have heard of this book or the author, Mick J Clark. Mick is a singer-songwriter and this is his first and only published novel. Message From a Star is set in present day U.S.A. and the two leading characters are ex-high school best buddies who drifted...
Barry Goddard – Book review October 2021 – Mama’s last hug
MAMA'S LAST HUG I'm halfway through this book, and it is moving. The Bible gave humans dominion over the earth, while in recent times we have had Science putting us at the top of the evolutionary tree - same difference, really. Mama's Last Hug, written by a long-time...
Stephen Kearney – Book Review – September 2021 – How Not to be Wrong – The Art of changing Your Mind
James O’Brien Review (replaying the tapes) by Stephen Kearney “One thing about you” said a friend of long – very long – standing “is that you reflect, or as you’d put it, you replay the tapes.” How Not To Be Wrong, James O’Brien’s 2020 work, is a master class in...
Paul Pickering – Book Review – August 2021 – Reflections From a Bookshop Window
This is the author’s only published novel. The publisher, Martin Breese, who was a very good friend of mine, tried to encourage Clive Linklater to write more novels, without success. The author steadfastly refused, which is something of a pity. Clive actually owned...
Stephen Kearney – Book Review – July 2021 – Citizen Clem
Review by Stephen Kearney “An empty taxi pulled up outside ten Downing Street” ran the joke of the time “and Clement Attlee got out”. Orwell called him “a dead fish”. A chapter of this very biography is entitled “Few thought he was even a starter.” So embarrassed was...
