Pittenweem Library reviews
I have so many unread books already in the house and so many books that I want to read that it can be rather irksome when a book group choice is something you have already read, and you need to read it again. (Although not as irksome as when it turns out to be something you have already read but…
One of my Christmas presents was a slim volume called Queen Macbeth, written by Val McDermid, published in 2024. In the author’s notes at the beginning, she says that we know very little about the real Macbeth, or Macbethad, and that Shakespeare's play bears no relation to the few facts we do know. She felt this gave her the freedom…
Al Murray is a highly successful English stand up comedian who created the comic character The Pub Landlord, a bombastic opinionated oaf whose message is ‘England is the best, all foreigners are rubbish’. Of course it is satire, with laughter the best form of criticism. But the real Al Murray was head boy at a leading public school and a…
Murder! Mayhem! Revenge – ! – ending in a glorious absurd climax. A feminist tract taken to its ultimate hilarious finale. Brilliant! This is another of the Storybook ND (New Directions) books, this time written by Rachel Ingalls. This one has 60 pages six lines and two words. It was dropped off in my front porch by the usual invisible delivery man and I…
‘Can you remember any artwork produced in the hospital that stays in your memory. Something so different, something quite unique, that you have never forgotten it?’ Joyce Laing defines ‘art extraordinary’ as ‘extremely rare and possesses that powerful quality which impinges itself on the memory, for nothing quite like it will have been seen before. It is arresting, beautiful and…
Often when I think about poetry for children, I think it’s a bit worthy and well, dull. It's for learning by rote and reciting at school assemblies or for use as a handy ink exercise. Well, these two books definitely challenge these assumptions. Michael Rosen’s A Great Big Cuddle is packed with thirty-five wonderfully fun verses for preschool children and can be found in…
This is a great wee book. I read it between breakfast and lunch one morning – with time left over. It’s a delight. A delicious delight. When I finished it I sat stunned that it was over, and going over and over it in my head. Where it has happily stayed since. Hence this review. It’s published by the American…
While the author was working as Programs Manager at the American Library in Paris she learned about the extraordinarily brave employees who endeavoured to keep the library open during World War II when Paris was under occupation. In 1917, the American Library Association’s Library War Service shipped over two million books donated by libraries and individuals to US soldiers serving…
I had never heard the name Bathia/Bethia until I met somebody with that name in Pittenweem. When I was last on duty in the library, I picked up a book on the New Stock table called The Castilians. As I opened it I saw the main character was called Bethia. I was intrigued so I borrowed it. The story is…
It’s probably a personality defect, but I love elections. There’s nothing quite like a decent dose of electionitis as the image-makers groom their candidates. The spin doctors and the PR people are in overdrive, as the various parties fine tune their policies to ensure maximum appeal. Opinion polls with their proverbial 3% margin of error pronounce daily, swingometers vacillate, political…