Category Archives: Reviews

Review: ‘Slavery’s Exiles; The story of the American Maroons’ by Sylviane A Diouf

New York University Press
11th February 2014

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http://www.sylvianediouf.com

Written by a scholar of the African diaspora, Slavery’s Exiles discusses the existence or otherwise of marronage among North American slaves. The maroons of Jamaica and Suriname have been extensively studied while evidence for maroons in the US (and the North American colonies before the War of Independence) is limited. This book looks at the evidence provided not only by former slaves interviewed in the early twentieth century, but at newspaper reports, court reports and legislation from the seventeenth century onwards.

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Review: 100 Poems Old and New by Rudyard Kipling

Selected and Edited by Thomas Pinney

Cambridge University Press

11 December 2013

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This is a collection of mostly unfamiliar poems by Rudyard Kipling, culled from a variety of sources.

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EEEEEKKK Dr Who! Or, my review of ‘An Adventure In Space and Time’

For those who don’t know, I quite enjoy Dr Who. I can’t wait for the fiftieth anniversary episode on Saturday evening. As part of the celebrations Mark Gatiss has made a programme called  ‘An Adventure In Time and Space’  – a dramatic retelling of the inception and early years of Dr. Who and the first Doctor, William Hartnell.

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Two book reviews

I know I said I wasn’t reviewing any books this month because I’m concentrating on my novel but I got to 43000 words yesterday so I took some time off to finish reading an ARC I’d got from http://www.netgalley.com and another book I’d borrowed from the library. My reviews follow.

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Review: ‘Thor: The Dark World’ and ‘Frankenstein – National Theatre Live production 2011’

You may be wondering why I’m writing reviews at one in the morning on 1st November when I clearly should be having an early night so that I can be up good and early to get the first couple of thousand words written on my NaNo novel in the morning. I have a legitimate excuse: I went to see a film and then a recording of a play at the cinema this afternoon/evening. It’s been an exhausting day but before I go to sleep I’m going to write my reviews.

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Review: A Study in Darkness Book 2 of The Baskerville Affair by Emma Jane Holloway

 

29th October 2013

Del Ray

asid

  • ISBN 9780345537195
  • $7.99
  • Mass Market Paperback

 

After the events of A study in silk Eveline Cooper was exiled to her Grandmamma Holmes’ Devon estate, Nick has given up the circus and his horses to become a pirate, captain of the Red Jack, Imogen Roth is fending off unsuitable suitors and Tobias Roth is engaged to the Gold King’s daughter Alice Keating, who is pregnant. Desperate for her company in Scotland Imogen persuades Alice to invite Eveline to visit them at the Keating shooting estate. After a joyous reunion all is turned upside down by Tobias’s unexpected arrival. The Gold King manipulates all concerned and Eveline is once more exiled, this time to Whitechapel. Her mission is to seek out the Blue King’s ‘maker’ – the person designing and creating his weapons and war machines.

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Review: Welbeck Hotel, Talbot Street, Nottingham

I just got back from another weekend in Nottingham and this time I stayed at the hotel that is right next to Rock City, partly because it was the cheapest hotel available for the night and partly because HIM – no other excuse needed.

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Review: ‘When Hollywood was Right: How movie stars, studio moguls and big business remade American politics’ by Donald T Critchlow

5th November 2013
Cambridge University Press

Donald Critchlow describes the history of Hollywood from a political perspective, a conservative Republican one. Hollywood hasn’t always been a liberal place; in the first half of the twentieth century the Republican party was very strong among actors and studio bosses. This is the story of the vacitudes of fate that took the Hollywood Right from repeated decline to success between the 30’s and 80’s. The political careers of key players such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Cecil B DeMille, Barry Goldwater, and supporters like John Wayne and Hedda Hopper are interwoven in this account pf the changing fortunes of the Republican party not just in Hollywood, but in California as a whole.

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