I don’t think I have ever come across a collection of poems more suited to reading aloud then “A Ted Hughes Bestiary”, edited by Alice Oswald. Because most may be perfect to be heard, many are – I found – difficult to read. Consequently I struggled with quite of few of these. I think the […]
I tried to plug on to the end of Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Sparsholt Affair” to see if anything happened. It didn’t. Just page after page of young men lusting after other young men, interspersed with middle-aged men disappearing stage left with other middle-aged men. You get the picture… I gave up after 180 pages. Was […]
Even if a small percentage of the poems in Alice Miller’s “Nowhere Nearer” didn’t quite come off (for me at least), overall I really liked this compact little volume. It has a style and voice that resonates with me. I guess that’s one of the unique things about poetry; not just its ability to speak […]
You don’t need to be familiar with Aeschylus, Sophocles or Euripides to enjoy Colm Tóibín’s “House of Names” – though I suspect it might help a little to have a sense of the original story. Having recently watched the BBC’s dramatisation, “Troy”, I was familiar with the story of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Iphigenia at least. […]
Tricky one… The first few dozen pages – and certainly the first twenty or so – are not typical of the whole of Will Self’s “Phone” (though they do set the tone). They are a bit like trying to find your face in a mirror that has been smashed on the floor. Almost impossible. I […]
