Finishing a novel – or any novel-shaped book – is a funny thing. Most books of course are finished more than once. So finishing a first draft brings a huge sigh of relief, maybe a few happy tears for getting the characters out of the muddle I put them in, followed by some mulling time … Continue reading THE END (and the beginning!)
A few months ago I wrote about William Boyd’s Sweet Caress (a badly named novel if ever there was!) with the intention of looking at other novels with photography as a theme or backdrop. The one I had in mind was Paul Theroux’s Picture Palace. I read this and quite a few other Theroux books … Continue reading Picture Palace by Paul Theroux (Photography in Fiction #2)
My home town of Dunfermline may only recently have acquired a Heritage Quarter but it has never lacked heritage: King Robert the Bruce of Bannockburn fame has his name emblazoned around the abbey tower; more recently Andrew Carnegie lavished quite a few of his millions on the place of his birth, equipping us with the … Continue reading A Lot of Linen Going On
As a fan of Margaret Skea’s Munro Series, I was intrigued to discover she was about to publish ‘something completely different’ this year – a fictional biography (you know how that topic gets me going!) of Martin Luther’s wife. Martin Luther had a wife? I hear you say. Yes, it was news to me too, but … Continue reading New Biographical Fiction – ‘Katharina: Deliverance’ by Margaret Skea
St Andrews is a small place that for any of its ex students holds a hoard of memories, all of them inextricably linked to the time as well as the place. I remember going back a few years after my graduation and feeling mostly a sense of loss. People I knew had left, their places … Continue reading St Andrews, its place in time
Ali Bacon, Author 