This review is of a French novel that has unanimous praise on review sites. Our reviewer's commentary reminded me of The President’s Hat which I loved and indeed that is also by Antoine Laurain. So, if you need to be cheered up then this is the one for you. Read it while drinking some good French wine and you won’t need to take that plane to Paris!
This review is about the history of witches in Scotland and how widespread and sometimes influential in the course of history they were. Lily Seafield has published a number of successful books about ghosts and the supernatural in Scotland.
This is a monumental novel following the story of a family rising from their beginnings in abject poverty in rural Afghanistan to affluence in California while never forgetting their connections to their home and family in war-torn Afghanistan. It chronicles aching life events such as the selling of a daughter, not more than a toddler, to a wealthy childless couple in Kabul. Increasing prosperity follows to a life in the USA, not neglecting corruption, cruelty and moral breakdown along the way, through to a circular return to their roots. Click on the title to read more....
This is not a novel for the faint hearted, but I feel enriched having read it and have a much greater sense of Italian aristocratic life during the Renaissance in terms of its splendour and opulence as well as its corruption, brutality and power. As in Hamnet when Maggie O’Farrell enabled us to experience Elizabethan Stratford and London in Shakespeare’s time, offering us an extraordinary insight into his family’s situation, she now takes the real life figure of Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, and his treatment of his 15-year-old bride, the subject of the marriage portrait, who met an untimely death. Click on title to read more......
What did Scottish Geographers have to do with the border between Lithuania and Latvia, exploration in Africa, and the rights of women in London? Jo Sharp will talk about the history of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Scotland’s Geographers Royal, and why the study of Geography is still so important to Scotland in the 21st century.
Stephen will be discussing his book Nation to Nation – Scotland's Place in the World, which looks at Scotland's international footprint today and throughout history. Stephen Gethins is Professor of Practice in International Relations, University of St Andrews. He worked in EU institutions and the international NGO sector in Eastern Europe before serving as MP for North East Fife from 2015 to 2019.
Balcaskie has been a neighbour and part of the communities around Pittenweem for centuries. Now we are changing the way we manage our farmland, buildings and the landscape. This is our opportunity to explain why we are making these changes, and discuss our ambitions and plans for the future
How the Crail community is turning wasteland into wildlife and tackling the biodiversity crisis one small piece at a time