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Richard Mason is an extraordinary writer.   For anyone who has read his previous books that will not come as a surprise.   This book is special.   It has come from deep within the heart of his South African soul.   768 more words

First, a confession.   I have known Gillian Slovo for many years through our involvement in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.   So you may wish to discount what I am saying.   479 more words

The River Rhine, AD184 – Rome’s bloody frontier with the German tribes, and the story begins in a truly bloodthirsty manner.   Amalric is to be inaugurated as the King of the Bructeri, a tribe whose enmity to Rome is without parallel.   408 more words

Iain Maloney has done it again.   He has written a book that simply must be read.   It is hard to think of a more difficult subject to write about than the Piper Alpha disaster, except of course the Lockerbie disaster of the same year, and James Robertson has already written about that.   405 more words

1563 was probably not a good year to be alive in Germany.   Martin Luther’s hammering of his 85 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg had led to nearly a half-century of warfare between the Emperor Charles V and the Lutheran princes.   578 more words

Benjamin Wood is one of those authors that you must read, if you wish to keep abreast of C21st century literature.   His first novel, The Bellwether Revivals, certainly attracted a great deal of attention, being nominated for the Costa First Book Award and the Commonwealth Book Prize.   587 more words

As a rule, I do not like Haiku.   There is nothing wrong with the form.   It is more the way that it has been latched onto by people who want to demonstrate how clever they are.   320 more words