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Continue reading →: Handling The Undead
Van International Film Festival 2024 – Norway Your potential movie-watcher is likely to arrive at this expecting something different than it is; billed as a ‘zombie horror’ and written by John Ajvide Lindquist (it was his follow up novel to Let The Right One In). This is something quite different…
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Continue reading →: Conclave, Anora & The Last Stop in Yuma County
Van International Film Festival 2024 Conclave A movie that requires some suspension of disbelief in its convenient coincidences, and is far more than the twists in its tail; for if it were to be judged on they alone it would far less rewarding. What it is, is a visual masterpiece…
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Continue reading →: International Film Festival
In the Van – 21 December to 2 January – (some reviews will follow..) Colors of Evil – Red – 111 mins – (Poland) Didi – 93 mins – (Taiwan) The Last Stop in Yuma County – 90 mins – (USA) Grave Torture – 117 mins – (Indonesia) Vaazhai –…
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Continue reading →: Denis Bracknel by Forrest Read
Published 1947 – British Literature This is a great example of what Valancourt do so well, rediscovering a long forgotten novel that reads every bit as well today as it first did. Originally called The Bracknels this was the Belfast author’s third novel and maybe best summarised as a bold,…
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Continue reading →: The Bishop’s Villa by Sacha Naspini
published 2024 – translated from the Italian by Clarissa Botsford Based on actual events that took place in a village in the south of Tuscany, Naspini’s own home town, this concerns a cobbler leading a simple life, who is drawn into helping partisans fight against fascists and Nazis without being…
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Continue reading →: Freakslaw by Jane Flett
Scottish Fiction – Published 2024 Is the world ready for another ‘carnie’ novel? Maybe.. but the standard is high.. Nightmare Alley, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Geek Love, The Night Circus, Nights at the Circus, Swamplandia!… and though readable, this doesn’t make the grade. Set in Scotland in the 1990s,…
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Continue reading →: Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda
translated from the Spanish (Mexico) by Julia Sanches and Heather Cleary An unnamed narrator at an unnamed university becomes increasingly obsessed with man named Gordon, who may be his tutor, as we are led to believe initially, though could be his colleague. Their relationship unfolds as the novel proceeds, with…
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Continue reading →: The Sick List by Ansgar Allen
British Literature – published 2021 An unnamed narrator at an unnamed university becomes increasingly obsessed with man named Gordon, who may be his tutor, as we are led to believe initially, though could be his colleague. Their relationship unfolds as the novel proceeds, with reference to books Gordon has borrowed…
To live more widely
supera superiora sequi
SafeReturnDoubtful is my alias.
Where is Andy?
I was so much older then…
Quote of the Week
Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, ‘What road do I take?’ The cat asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it really doesn’t matter, does it?’
Lewis Carroll
Safe Return Doubtful 