-
Continue reading →: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Climate Fiction – Australia – Published March 2025 This is an entertaining piece of climate fiction that feels exaggerated, and with plenty of convenient coincidences, to reach a wider audience. I can’t really argue with that, or label it as a criticism; it seems the book is getting plenty of…
-
Continue reading →: A Carnival of Atrocities by Natalia García Freire
translated from the Spanish (Ecuador) by Victor Meadowcroft – Publsihed April 2025 One day a number of people walk out of their Ecuadorian town of Cocuan, a place that is not on maps, for no apparent reason, other than they see their town as being ‘a carnival of atrocities’. They…
-
Continue reading →: Dearest Sister
or Nong Hak – Horror – Laos 2016 A teenage girl from a poor and remote Laos village arrives to the city to after her blind cousin, and finds out that her cousin has the ability to speak to the dead, though neither realise at first, that their messages are…
-
Continue reading →: Shap, Cumbria: the hiking season and back to work..I was only back in Shap for 3 days and the hiking season started, which meant work. Though I’ve done a few hours online work each week, I haven’t actually attended for any work for six years, something of a shock to the system. New Ing Lodge provides bed, breakfast…
-
Continue reading →: Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History’s Greatest Arctic Rescue by Buddy Levy
Non-Fiction – Published January 2025 Levy is at his best when writing about Arctic Exploration. I’ve read much of his work and prior to this my favourites were <i>Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition</i> and <i>Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of…
-
Continue reading →: North Sun: Or, The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther by Ethan Rutherford
American Historic Fiction – Published March 2025 Set in 1878, the last years of the American whaling industry, this is the story of the doomed expedition of a fictional whale vessel. At first, life on board the Esther mirrors, intentionally I think, that on the Moby Dick; long periods of…
-
Continue reading →: Kerrigou Beach & back to Cumbria
Kerrigou beach was the perfect spot to be within fifteen minutes drive from the Roscoff ferry. But tell no one. It’s a six vehicle car park and neither the space nor the access road would be big enough for anything more than a medium wheel base van. Notably, it isn’t…
-
Continue reading →: Plounéour-MénezWe spent the weekend in the small town of Plounéour-Ménez. Their place for camping cars is in the car park in the centre, next to their seventeenth century church. Dating from 1651 the Saint-Yves church boasts the highest tower in Brittany, at 50 metres. This area is high ground for…
-
Continue reading →: The Sound of His Horn by Sarban
British Literature – Published 1952 British diplomat John William Wall wrote under the name of Sarban, though published only three books during his lifetime. Thirteen years after his death other manuscripts were found, two novellas and a collection of essays. They were published by Tartarus. Kingsley Amis writes a lengthy…
-
Continue reading →: The Room by Jonas Karlsson
translated from the Swedish by Neil Smith – Published 2014 This was Karlsson’s debut novel. To date, three of his novels have been translated into English, all of which are typical of his style, which includes a cast of oddballs, and Kafkaesque surrealism. It centres on the office environment, and…
To live more widely
supera superiora sequi
SafeReturnDoubtful is my alias. Rua is my fox red labrador pup, born 14 Feb 2026 and learning fast..
Where is Rua?
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 