Category: Reviews
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The Blazing World
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, October 2014.] By it’s nature every book is unique but The Blazing World is not at all like any other work of fiction I have read before. The author has published as many non-fiction titles as she has fiction and her journalist-like ability as a…
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
[This review was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, June 2014.] In a former life as a secondary school teacher I taught several students with (the then poorly-understood) Asperger’s syndrome. One girl in a class of mine almost never did the work I asked her to do and sometimes I would get very…
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Never Let Me Go
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, April 2014.] This book is the story of three unusual friends but they are distinctly different to the people in the wider world, those they call "normals," because they have been cloned only to donate their organs. This is in fact their main function in…
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The White Tiger
[A version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, March 2014.] The author sets the tone with the book opening (and continuing all the way through) in the form of a letter by the main character to the Chinese premier. It is only in the final chapter when we learn…
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Every Light in the House Burnin’
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Feb. 2014] Andrea Levy’s "Every Light In The House Burnin’" is the dialoue-heavy story of a young north-London girl and her Jamaican immigrant parents as their traditional, conservative family makes its way into her young adulthood. Seemingly largely autobiographical, the book is divided into…
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Knots & Crosses/Juliet Naked
[A version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine in December2013.] In Knots and Crosses, the prolific Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin sets up the absorbing and sometimes slightly unappealing character of detective John Rebus. In this first book in the series, we learn that Rebus’ father has just died,…
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SNUG/Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life
[A version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine in September 2013.] Matthew Tree, the prolific British/Catalan writer has just published SNUG, his first novel in his native English. In this work, he shows that he is one of the few writers born in England who is brave enough to…
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The Cellist of Sarajevo/ A Fly in the Ointment
[An edited version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, April 2013.] Conflict, both external and internal, is a major theme in the two titles this month. In Galloway’s international bestseller, to cross the street is to risk being shot by a sniper and in Fine’s lies and double-dealing becomes…
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The Girl on the Landing/Solar
[An edited version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2013.] Two books on from the commercial success of his first, “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” Paul Torday has, with “The Girl on the Landing,” written a more conventional tale about a man who experiences a new mental and emotional…
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Sade – Lovers Rock
[This CD review was first published in Kansai Scene magazine.] It’s been some time since we heard from Sade – eight years in fact, so this release is almost a comeback for her. Our waiting has not been in vain. This return proves her to be much more than a passenger from the 1980’s.…
Brett Hetherington 