Browsing Archive: October, 2021
Posted by Yvonne Barlow on Wednesday, October 27, 2021,
I’m reading Black and British by David Olusoga, a terrific read
reaching back to Roman times when forces of Afro-Romans arrived in the third
century and were stationed in Cumbria. Olusoga sweeps forward through the
Blackamoors, during Elizabethan times, to Black Britains who fought at
Trafalgar, through to the wars of the 20th century. He writes much
about the Georgian fashion for having a young black pageboy, such children were
often treated like pets among the wealthy, dressed up and fete...
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What are you afraid of?
Posted by Yvonne Barlow on Thursday, October 21, 2021,
Halloween is next week and the search for scary books is
upon us.
I am not a fan of being scared. My imagination can go into
overdrive with the gentlest of noise in the middle of the night – Once I spent
a night wide-eyed, convinced there was a ghost dragging chains behind him in
the hallway and it turned out to be a mouse trying to get out of a plastic-lined
bin. When it comes to inciting fear, I need little help from a book.
However, at Hookline we do have a few scary novels.
What lies...
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A small pebble on a rocky landscape
Posted by Yvonne Barlow on Monday, October 18, 2021,
Many
manuscripts reach me but few grab my attention so completely as Mission by Paul
Forrester-O’Neill. This story, set in the United States, begins with a small
boy who overhears his mother tell his father a horrendous lie. The plot follows
the boy to adulthood as he tries to make amends to his father.
A boy and his father are separated by an
unforgivable lie. Twenty years later they meet, and the dying father tells John
of the men who cheated him and the town of Mission that spurned him...
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Bringing news to life
Posted by Yvonne Barlow on Wednesday, October 13, 2021,
County lines is a big crime issue. Gangs are using young
teens as runners to transport drugs and money across the country. The teens are
young enough to not arouse suspicion by police and, once drawn into the world of drug running, getting out is
near impossible. Young people have been stabbed, murdered and even pushed to
suicide.
It’s a terrifying world that did not exist when many of us
were young. However, we read about it in newspapers and imagine it far away
from our own lives. This...
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To give up or to soldier on
Posted by Yvonne Barlow on Tuesday, October 12, 2021,
Mark Billingham said he gives a new book 20 pages. If the story hasn't set up its plot, given him characters worth following and prose he cares about then he tosses it aside.
Now Mark is a crime writer who knows his craft. The successful crime novelist's books regularly feature in best seller lists and his Thorne novels were turned into a television series. However, he said his wife disagrees with him. Speaking at this year's
Cheltenham Literature Festival, he said that she soldiers on throug...
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