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Archives for April, 2012
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Stonemouth by Ian Banks – review
While there are familiar elements to the story, it being set in small town Scotland, it is a new tale from Ian Banks. The story is told in a first person point of view style, and on a first reading at least, realistically leaves some loose ends where the protagonist cannot be sure of who did what and why. Taking place over a long weekend the story unfolds with a mixture of narrative and flashbacks to explain the background relationships and the reasons why Stewart Gilmour ended up an exile from his home town. There is a believable cast of characters, they all seem real and with complex motivations, even the low-key gangster types. The underlying plot is one of relationships and how they interplay over time. It also covers some of the issues of the Scottish diaspora well, how…
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Fifty Books in 2012 – Progress Update 18% complete
You’ll perhaps recall that I set myself a target of reading all 40 books I was given for my birthday during the course of 2012. I then modified that target to also include some of the remaining books from Christmas and one or two other recent additions to the ‘to-read’ bookcase (which it most certainly is, the 40 birthday books take up a shelf on their own with a couple balanced on top). I’ve been slowed down recently trying to complete a couple of assignments for an OU course I’ve been studying (B628 Managing People and Organisations). I put in the last assignment on that on 29 th March, but won’t find out if I’ve passed for a few months yet (I’m not confident, I had a bout of illness that robbed me of a couple long days worth of…
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Midnight in Some Burning Town –a Review
I actually enjoyed reading this book, even though it wasn’t the book that I thought I was buying. I had ordered it expecting that it would tell me about the various special forces missions that UK forces had been up to between the first Gulf War in 1990-91 and when it was published (in 2004). It sort of covered that, but there was no real detail to much of the early stuff, for example the Sierra Leone mission is dealt with in a couple of pages. I’ve seen some other (much more detailed) accounts of the events (from the point of view of the Paras and the kidnapped Major). However, where it does come into its own is when it explains the issues around Kosovo and Macedonia. The author obviously had a strong interest in this period (possibly based on…