Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

                                                courtesy of dricons.com Vows made, rings exchanged, hearts fluttering. We made a lifelong promise to cherish each other, Hopeful it would blossom and flourish in eternal bliss. Love, a precious gift. But ours was wrapped in cellophane Like a shapeless bundle of clay, suffocating Every breath of life from its lungs, Draining the blood from its veins, Reducing this gift to a limp reminder Of its former power of creation, its glory. Guaranteed for seven days they should have said, The price of love, not worth more nor less Than just a bunch of flowers, reduced, Almost given away for nothing, the value of love? It should have been priceless not worthless. courtesy of 1...

" I still don't know why I had to come!" Those were the only audible words uttered by Jane's youngest daughter during that tedious three-hour journey from London. Trying to ignore this eleven year old sullen child was not the easiest thing in the world. Surviving in the jungle without food might have been easier thought Jane. Steph continued to glare at Jane expecting some kind of retaliation. She tensed her body with one of her usual calculating mannerisms before muttering through clenched teeth like a wild animal ready to explode: "Daddy isn't here! Why can't I go home and stay with daddy? I want to go home!" This child was extremely stubborn when she set her mind to anything and insensitive to other people's feelings. Her physical as well as her emotional resemblance to her father was so uncanny, not just one but two temperamental individuals who could both be exasperatingly unmanageable free spirits, impossible to live with at the same tim...

O Shylock, where is thy spirit of wrath To destroy thine enemy, Antonio? Where lies the seed of revenge That grew into baneful nothingness? The unremitting suff'rance of your tribe  Hath made a mockery out of thee. Thy malice has destroyed thy faith, Destroyed thee, stripped thee of all dignity. Thy mangled heart hast been broken, Stretched beyond recognition, The umbilical cord frayed, discarded carelessly. A despised pater, abandoned and rejected By Jessica, ridiculed and tortured by thine own misery. A lifetime punishment of scorn to endure, Festering in a living hell, damned and then reborn As a newly-baptised Christian. Mah?Chutzpah.  COPYRIGHT 2012. Permission to use this poem must be obtained from the writer.

  The woman surveyed the mound, the Garden of Eden, Tufts of velvety grass grew in patches on the barren soil, She knelt, lowered her head embarrassed by the tears And cried, A solitary figure Insignificant in this vast universe of life or death Inconspicuous in her grief, wretched and tormented, Lamenting the futile death of her young infant child. Head bowed, tears flowing Seeking solace through her suffering But finding none.  Copyright 2012. Permission must be obtained from the author before using this poem.

Matt and Lorna appear to be a happily married couple, both professional with three young children but this is where any normality ends. Matt is ambitious and hopeful for promotion before he secretively discovers that he is on the redundancy list after the company is facing an economic downturn and it needs to shed a third of its workforce. He describes it as a  "freefall to hell." He sees a job advertised in Yorkshire and convinces Lorna that he must apply even if it means relocation from their Kent home, a big upheaval for all the family. Matt describes the opportunity as a "miracle" and a "Godsend." Well-needed. Perfect timing. "I was right to get out before the bomb of redundancy dropped, before the shock waves spread." Protest marches and strikes ensue but fortunately, Matt has successfully secured a deputy managerial position at Grafton engineering. Settling into a new job became problematic for Matt. Open hostility and resentment of th...

Just for a change I wanted to transport you to an earlier time and place when conditions were poor and people less civilised. The story is set in the 13th Century in China, This is not Khaled Hossein's The Kite Runner which is another wonderful book. McCaughrean has had an extremely successful career having written more than 130 books and received various prestigious awards and she is still going strong luckily for us. Haoyou is the main character and we follow his turbulent journey from Dagu to Dadu, returning home, wiser and undefeated. If you think the world is violent today take a look at how it was then. Relatives were able to murder their offspring for disobedience or showing disrespect. Our teenagers would love that wouldn't they? His loss of innocence happens when he witnesses his father's untimely death at the start of the novel. Haoyou knew that his father's spirit lived among the clouds for he had seen him go up there with a soul and come down again w...

Do any of you remember the 60s when Fleming dominated the market with our favourite Secret Service lothario of an agent, 007? Beautiful women, fiendish Russian spies, plenty of action, sex and humour. This book contains all of the ingredients to make this into a typical James Bond story with a touch of romance NOT THE USUAL SEX, culminating in our eligible bachelor tying the knot! This was Fleming's 11th novel, first published in 1963. It was part of the Blofeld trilogy, the second one. Thunderball came first, then this one finishing with You Only Live Twice. The novel was adapted into a film in 1969 and George Lazenby played Bond, his one and only appearance. Did you know that? Well you do now. Bond had been trailing a criminal organisation called SPECTRE for a year. Blofeld naturally was the leader. At the beginning of the novel it seems that Bond is on the point of resigning from the Secret Service when he meets Teresa di Vicenzo, a Countess who is into dangerous living big...

Do men seek the elixir of life? Why did people study alchemy?And finally, why was the Philosopher's Stone so hard to find? In the preface, Coelho refers to the eleven years when he studied alchemy and the frustration involved. He commented on his attraction with the Elixir of Life. During his spiritual exile in the seventies he learned many important things: a "truth" is only accepted after we have completely rejected it. We mustn't run away from our destiny and God is firm but infinitely generous. Try Paulo Coelho's novel but I am not promising any answers or mind-blowing discoveries about our raison d'etre. Does reading it change our lives for ever? Is it a transforming novel? Pass. Has it had a life-enhancing impact on me? The truth? Afraid not but ask again when I have discussed it with like-minded people and read it a few more times! I did find it a charming story though, full of religious anecdotes, interpretations of dreams. Jung would have appro...

If you read a piece of fiction depicting evil as a recurrent theme wouldn't you possibly expect it to centre around adults? Wrong. Try again. Children? Surely not. This story depicts not only the constant tension and bickering between two 11 year old boys who are thrown together but torment and cruelty. Both boys, Kingshaw and Hooper are damaged "goods" and deeply disturbed. Kingshaw narrates his sad tale of victimisation and he gives us such a worrying insight into his innumerable insecurities, fears and abject misery as soon as he arrives at Warings with his mother, Mrs Helena Kingshaw who is really looking for another husband rather than a job as a housekeeper with all the trimmings of security and stability.   Hooper, an only child, spoilt and devious, Kingshaw's nemesis, hates the boy for invading his home and at every opportunity he torments the boy who has had a history of being bullied. Hooper enjoys inflicting cruelty on weak-minded boys like Kingsha...

This is the second part of the Barrytown trilogy and my second review of Doyle. Sharon is almost 20, the eldest daughter of a working class Irish family. Her sudden pregnancy and the birth of her snapper dominate the story which contains abundant supplies of black Celtic humour which is typical of Doyle's style. The language can be strong but it adds to the enjoyment and character development. These people are tough and life can be cruel but they are survivors in spite of their hard exteriors. Jimmy Senior is a typical example of an uneducated and ignorant man who spends most of his time in the pub with his mates, just like Sharon. He does have, however a number of redeeming  qualities-he genuinely cares for his family and is supportive of Sharon's pregnancy sticking up for her honour, what little there might be left when she is branded a slut. It is ironical that Sharon was so blind drunk at the time that a middle-aged, married man was able to rape her in the car pa...

This is another short story by the popular, Scottish acclaimed writer who I enjoy reading and reviewing. I have also reviewed Remembrance. The novel was first published in 1993. Structurally, it has a simple divide: the first part Scotland, the second, Canada. Set in Scotland initially during the 1930s depression, it refers to the 1926 General Strike and pit disasters. Our main protagonist shows strength and determination after her father dies a hero at the mine when disaster strikes. Kezzie has a grandfather who is a wonderful man and a young sister, Lucy. The novel plots their descent into poverty like many others at that time. They are forced to leave the sanctity of their miner's cottage after the father was killed and move into a bothy then a caravan. Kezzie, a brilliant future ahead, has to leave school and find any available work, just like her grandfather, otherwise it is starvation or becoming beggars. Not much of an option for them is it? An unfortunate, untimely ...

                                                               VOID. Devoid of life, purgatorial hell, my vision cloaked, With shells exploding, I stumbled on, blindfolded by shrapnel Onwards through the murky gates of hell, disquiet and unrest Inevitably greeting me through invisible wisps of smoke. Air expelled from my charred lungs as I choked back the vomit As my life dangled on a thread between purgatory and hell.   COPYRIGHT 2012. Permission must be obtained from the author to use this poem.   THE LOST YEARS.   dedicated to W.D.Hunt who stole my child from me The ruffled blonde hair, Penetrating brown eyes, The strained smile as the c...

Think of all those wonderful connotations of Devon with rivers meandering through tranquil countryside. Carnaldip, like Elizabeth Gaskell's C ranford seems to be a sleepy and peaceful setting surrounded by natural beauty and charm. Superficial and under the surface like the strong undercurrent in the river, there is constant danger lurking. It is destructive and violent. Now consider the impact this has on the lives of the locals-characters we come to know intimately-all of them hoarding secrets, pain and suffering. Anna has escaped fom London, ended her relationship, pregnant. She walks blindly and naively into a minefield with predictably devastating consequences. The River is Wastvedt's first novel published in 2004. Like the river, the story races and meanders through 40 years from 1946-1987 and hovers like the demon from hell in 1958 and 1987, two significant years. Just like the tide that ebbs and flows to and fro, the novel parallels this-an interesting and unusual s...

Paul O'Grady? Lily Savage? O'Grady takes us back to life in the seventies and gives us a glimpse of his life from the age of 18. He presents us with a vivid and usually a sordid and seedy picture of the Birkenhead club scene followed by the equally sordid London scene, dens of inequity for a troubled soul whose lifelong ambition seems to be to get inebriated every night and wake up with a stinking hangover. Vanity and hedonistic pleasure dominated his life. At 18 he had to be "friggin' gorgeous" dolled up in the tightest of garments to accentuate his sexuality and desirability before he could storm the club scene. His mother called it "tomcatting" and the expression "the devil rides out" is one of the phrases mother used for his clubbing, dressed up to the eyeballs and on the pull. Her prejudice was more evident when she called it "debauchery" and then lashed out at him with: "You fornicating, no-good, dirty big who-er....

Pullman's book should appeal to anyone interested in Christianity who is open-minded enough to appreciate a revisiting of the Bible from a slightly different perspective. The Gospels provide you with the most important source of Jesus's life. Pullman used the Authorised Version, the New English Bible and the New Revised Standard Version. It is NOT to be seen as a work of blasphemy. Pullman is a storyteller and a Christian so the story respects the teachings of the Gospels and shows an interesting and extremely readable interpretation, sensitive but also thought-provoking. It is something different and original but plausible and overly sad. The story is a visionary one retelling the birth, the life and death of Jesus Christ. Imagine: What if Jesus Christ had a twin brother? Or what if his twin brother betrayed him and not Judas  Iscariot? Simply put, we are presented with two Almighty people, Jesus who is the charismatic one but selfish and Christ who broods, a pragmatist...

Cross opens the novel dramatically with the death of John Cox, a demolition worker who was so badly burnt that he was identified by his medical records. He was considered an expert so it is hard for his girlfriend, Annie and his sister, Hayley to accept that he would not take the necessary precautions and so they travel to Siberia to discover the ugly truth. His mother, Chris is in such a state that she burns his personal possessions and almost demolished his furniture in his bedroom. She can't bring herself to talk about him; she is so distraught. Hayley has constant visions of him; wherever she goes she sees his face. Uncanny. Is she suffering from delusions? What does it mean? The plot thickens quickly with an amnesia victim suffering from tickfever who stumbles upon a peasant family in Siberia, filthy and smelly with badly soiled clothes and five ticks embedded in his swollen flesh. It is Frosya who finds him and nurses him back to health. Before she burns his clothes, sh...

The word continuum refers to a link between two things or a continuous series of things that blend into each other so gradually and seamlessly that it is impossible to say where one becomes the next. This is what the poet is trying to achieve through creating poetry, continuous ideas and this poem shows his frustration when he feels that nature is hindering his creativity. One of the things that Curnow liked doing was to capture the essence of a child by showing the childlike engagement  a child might have with its environment. The first stanza shows his childlike humour in the way he depicts the moon which "rolls" and "falls." Even the language is simplistic. like that of a child. " All poems are rash acts." Allen Curnow. The persona/poet is unable to get off to sleep, "off the subject" or "off the planet." He can't stop thinking either. He goes outside barefooted into the "washed out creation." The sky has prob...

" She was a phantom of delight    When first she gleamed upon my sight:   A lovely apparition, sent   To be a moment's ornament." It has been  a treat for me to indulge in some beautiful writing by a well-respected Indian writer, revered by the British writer Graham Greene who was his mentor, his friend and instrumental in promoting Narayan worldwide. In the literary world he is regarded as one of the best novelists that India has ever produced. I am more than happy to endorse this. The English Teacher was not seen as a deliberate attempt to produce Narayan's autobiography but this seems to be the writer's legacy. His earlier novels were more deliberate attempts to depict his own life story and they are both wonderful reads: Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. Narayan's inspiration revolves around two main ideas: disillusionment with teaching undergraduates with their "grim tolerance" of literature, wanting to be spoon-fed rather th...

"You betrayed me. You told Bangs...What an idiot I've been to trust you. All that filth and lies you've been writing...You're exploiting me." The book was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2003 after receiving incredible reviews, the film followed in 2006. Sheba, a teacher of pottery meets Barbara Covett, a history teacher at St. George's. Their friendship blossoms but turns sour once Sheba realises that her so-called friend has chronicled her affair with Steven, a minor at the school and once it is published she will live richly off the proceeds. Sheba (Bathesheba) comes from a privileged middle/upper class affluent family but she has not nourished the success and happiness she deserves. She drifted into marriage at twenty, with Richard, an older man who has already had a failed marriage behind him and children. He is trendy but a decent guy, well-educated but not wonderfully exciting . Bill Nighy takes on this role with gusto. By the end of the novel ...

The future is bleak in this dystopian story of love, prejudice and discrimination. It is one of a series: Knife Edge, Checkmate, Double Cross, An Eye For An Eye and Callum. Sephy is a Cross, privileged, one of the ruling class from a wealthy but dysfunctional family. Her father is a political figure, more concerned about his own image than considering the welfare of his family. His wife had an affair and then became an alcoholic and this is how she deals with her miserable life. Callum is a Nought, sometimes called a blanker who refuses to tolerate the prejudice in society. He is a fighter who turns into a cold-blooded killer but his redeeming feature is his undying love for Sephy that survives throughout all of this adversity. Sephy is a fighter too and she suffers just as much as Callum. It's a retelling of Romeo and Juliet with a different kind of "ancient grudge." She is prepared to stand up for her beliefs of equality and suffers physical and verbal abuse but thi...

"There was a baby.A couple on the run. And they were different. They were not right." Rachel Simon's literary career started with her bestselling memoir of her intellectually challenged sister, Beth in "Riding the Bus with my Sister." Her motivation for writing both books was not just about Beth but other less fortunate individuals who were institutionalised. In 1972 a programme was shown on US tv about the Willowbrook State School which "horrified" her family. "I came to feel remorse that institutional tragedies had unfolded in a parallel universe" one that was alien to Simon. There seemed to have been a "secret history" which had been "kept out of sight for so long." It wasn't just the American "secret shame" but worldwide. Doris Lessing uses shocking but real images based on a German lunatic asylum in "The Fifth Child." In the UK Panorama exposed the "shocking treatment" of its disab...

One of the concluding comments, a very simple but poignant one is spoken by Skeeter's mother who is dying of cancer. When she became an important political figure she betrayed Constantine, the help  who had brought Skeeter up to be strong and independent. She dismissed her and her daughter Rachel from her home to show white superiority  in front of her political and influential friends. She lacked the courage to openly admit that coloured people were valued and an important part of her white family, guilt she had to live with for the remainder of her short  life. Skeeter is a journalist and learns the whole truth when she attempts to write the torturous accounts of the abuse and humiliation the coloured women had to suffer at the hands of the middle class, racist whites. The story is about the courage to tell the truth even though there were painful consequences. Skeeter became ostracized by the white hypocrites and Aibileen Clark, one of the main coloured characters i...

William Wordsworth was one of the Romantic poets. He was born in 1770 and died in 1850. In 1843 he became the Poet Laureate. These three poems adopt a simple ballad technique. We can assume that Lucy was an unknown pauper. It may seem unusual for a well-known poet to write about a girl who lived an insignificant existence and died without anyone knowing or caring-other than the poet. Wordsworth lived in France for a year and he made a series of tours into Europe and he refers to his foreign travels here.  He was a poet of man and  nature who gained an "unfailing source of joy and purest passion" from writing about this. What is interesting is that he remained a "champion" of the poor and humble hence his choice of characters and here we mean Lucy. Charles Dickens did the same thing just like many other writers. In Auden's poem The Unknown Citizen  you have the same idea. In Lucy 1  the persona is most likely the poet. In line 2 he refers to a place outside ...

This is a remarkable debut novel from a young and talented writer and is on my highly recommended list. Picture the scene: Trafalgar Square, togetherness as a family, the epitome of happiness. Jamie, 5 feeding the pigeons and his twin sisters, 10 twirling around amongst the pigeons and an abundance of laughter. When Jasmine stopped, Rose continued much to her mother's delight. A different scene. A deafening explosion, dad screaming Rose, Rose, Rose and then a family torn apart by anger, grief and guilt. "Police found ten bits of her body." A terrorist bomb exploded, destroyed an innocent 10 year old and violated the remainder of her family beyond recognition. The world turned black, the future was bleak but in spite of this, Jamie narrates the story from an innocent, naive 10 year old's point of view. He simply cannot remember much about Rose and cannot grieve over her unlike the rest of his family. "I don't remember anything about the day except a b...