Books

From the moment we call tell the difference between a long-stemmed red rose and a box of quality chocolates, we have been schooled to view love as a thing of perfect glory. It is, so a certain rather dominant strand of popular culture tells us, a thing of glorious wonder Continue Reading

One of the great and multitudinous gifts of master science fiction storyteller Peter F. Hamilton is how masterfully well he can hold stories separated by time and space together in such a compellingly immersive manner. Time and again, across his Commonwealth saga and sundry other engrossing tales, he has slowly Continue Reading

Imagination is a necessary ingredient in every work of fiction you read. Whether it’s brilliantly or prosaically exercised, the ability of a writer to take an idea and run with it such that you, as the reader, have no choice but to run right alongside them, is one of the Continue Reading

Every last one of us needs some kind of purpose. Without it, no matter what we tell ourselves or how fiercely we push down the discontent, we always feel adrift, lost, as if we are heading nowhere even as we doggedly place one weary foot in front of the next. Continue Reading

Books have always been my happy place. From when I was a kid at school, battling bullies and the loneliness of having no friends – who wants to be friends with the object of the bullying? NO ONE – through to this year when I nursed my mother through the Continue Reading

History is all too often the art of looking back at facts and not personalities. When we examine the big epoch-defining events of our time and those that preceded it, we are often apt to look at what took place rather than who made it take place. That is largely Continue Reading