Islay My friend Dave and I recently celebrated our joint 50th birthdays by spending a long weekend on Islay. Where's Islay, some of you may ask? Here's Islay: Map courtesy of islayinfo.com And it's pronounced "eye-lah". Not "eye-lay", "iz-lay", or "ill-ay". Eye-lah. It's famous - properly world-famous - for its whisky, particularly smoky, peated, single … Continue reading Islay: Whisky, Place and Magic
If there’s been less of a gap since Kathleen Jamie’s last prose collection Surfacing (2019) than between her previous (Sightlines, 2012 and Findings, 2006), maybe it’s because there’s a greater sense of urgency. The pieces in her superb new book Cairn are short – some just a couple of paragraphs – but there’s no sense … Continue reading Kathleen Jamie: “Cairn” (2024)
A widower and his young daughter live in a hillside cottage. Interspersed between the increasingly dark events of their life are vignettes of historical scenes from the area's past: moments of violence, trauma, and death, whose actors and events feed into each chapter. The girl, Nia, has a powerful imagination, which seems capable of dissolving … Continue reading Review: “Dark Play” by Tim Cooke (2024)
Time is cyclical. That's the underlying message of Gareth E. Rees's timely and often persuasive new book, the follow-up to his superb Unofficial Britain. As a species, argues Rees, we've been here before: we've seen the seas rise, seen rising waters swallow the land. It's happened once, twice, many times; and if we take the … Continue reading Review: “Sunken Lands” by Gareth E. Rees (2024)
A hobby of mine when I was a teenager was birdwatching. I'd go for walks up the hill behind my parents' house with binoculars and field guide; if I was lucky Mum and Dad would take me to RSPB Vane Farm (now Loch Leven), a half-hour drive away; or I'd go with my cousin Colin, … Continue reading Not birdwatching
A quick note to let you know that 'Horrified' magazine have published my short story 'The Reeds'! Why don't you go there now and read it (and all the other great stories, reviews and articles they have)?
"If you look closely enough, all landscapes can be fascinating and any object, no matter what its material, can be freighted with meaning." This is the most inspiring book I've read all year. Writer Gareth E. Rees1 shows, through his wonderfully offbeat travels across Britain, that in a secular age "significance" can be found anywhere, … Continue reading “Unofficial Britain” by Gareth E. Rees
This book wasn't what I expected it to be. But that's fine, because it sets out to do one thing while it - deliberately, cunningly - does the opposite. In St. Mary's Church, Brent Pelham, in eastern Hertfordshire is the tomb of Piers Shonks, dragon slayer. Yep, dragon slayer. In Hollow Places, writer Christopher Hadley … Continue reading “Hollow Places” by Christopher Hadley
Adam Scovell takes his long-standing fascination with the idea of Place a step further in this, his coldly enveloping second novel. Isabelle is in Strasbourg. Her increasingly-distanced partner has left for a trip to South America, and she's alone when she receives word of her father's suicide. So begins her slow sinking into the fabric … Continue reading Review: Adam Scovell – “How Pale The Winter Has Made Us”
Something a bit different. I go for cycles more than I do walks, and the back roads of East- and Midlothian are my usual haunts. I've explored some of the old coal mining region in a previous post. A ride on a road bike is necessarily restricted to roads, because you can't branch off onto … Continue reading Esk Valley & Moorfoots: a ride
Into the Gyre 