The phrase “long-awaited” is overused, but in the case of Long Island, the sequel to Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn, it is justified. On publication in 2009, Brooklyn sealed Toibin’s reputation as one of the UK’s finest novelists, and won the Costa Novel Award. Some years later it was chosen by The Observer as “One of the 10 best historical novels”.
While onlookers are led to believe that parties are ideologically separated by a chasm as deep as the Grand Canyon, the gulf between moderate Conservative, Labour, LibDem, Green and SNP politicians is – the issue of independence aside – far shallower than you might imagine.
The ferry fiasco could herald a new wave of Highland clearances
James Percival Everett Mantle, £20 Review by Rosemary Goring “You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter.” So begins Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which the eponymous hero is allowed to tell his own story. Huck Finn is perhaps the most famous and critically celebrated of all literary sequels.
Real fires, it seems, are the largest source of harmful small particulate matter air pollution in the UK, and recent publicity by the Clean Air Campaign seeks to highlight the health problems they can cause.
Supermarket shopping: so much quicker and more efficient – not to mention cheaper – than dotting along the high street from butcher to greengrocer to baker. Or so we’re led to believe. Yet there I was, the other week, in the cereal aisle, taking ages to reset my Tesco loyalty card password, which I had forgotten, and squinting at the screen like an owl in sunlight, since I’d also forgotten my spectacles.
Caledonian Road, like the street after which it is named, feels both modern and old. Andrew O’Hagan’s ambitious seventh novel could hardly be more different from his last, Mayflies, a simple, powerful story of boyhood friendship that lasts a lifetime. By contrast, Caledonian Road is complex and convoluted, managing to be completely contemporary yet as full of characters, plotlines and morality tales as a Victorian novel.
Some decisions by government agencies leave you speechless. When I heard that Glasgow’s Aye Write festival had been cancelled because Creative Scotland turned down its grant application, I thought I had misheard.
In the minds of believers, in other words, prayer is a powerful force. No doubt this explains the outrage of those whose vigils outside abortion clinics in Scotland are soon to be banned. A crucial part of these Christian protesters’ armoury is prayer, both silent and vocal.
I doubt there’s anyone in our village who thoughtlessly switches on the central heating, or turns on the hot tap for longer than needed. Baths are rationed, drawers are stuffed with jumpers and socks that Roald Amundsen would have envied, and visitors arrive in layers, rightly prepared for the worst.
