celticman's blog

Alison is quite beautiful. I bought this graphic novel for a quid. I’d like to say its smudged cover art stood out. But I know less about art than music. There are, of course, different kinds of art and music. In terms of making a living from art, 99% have no chance, Graphic novelists and poets have less of a chance that that. Alison, the narrator, whose life we follow from pane to pain in 1958, in Bridgeport, Dorset. There she is as a baby with...

‘Stand under a tree and exchange breath with it’. Can you love a tree? Mandy Haggith likes to think so. My track record is mottled. My mates and me attacked trees with knives to practice stabbing. What kind of tree? I’ve no idea. A tree is a tree. We also tried cutting one down with a hand axe. The tree refused to die. We hardly made a dent in it. You don’t of course dent trees. The Scolytus scolytus beetle is a serial elm tree killer and far...

Gavin Francis is an Edinburgh GP with around 4000 patients on his books. He also works as a locum on the Scottish Islands. Harris springs to mind. I’ve read (and reviewed) his first book, Island Dreams . (‘Islands can be a testing ground’ as can Covid-19)? He mirrors Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Years: ‘the best physic against the plague is to run away from it’. We’ve become overfamiliar with the term ‘essential worker’, face masks and...

‘No-one will protect what they don’t care about, and no-one will care about what they’ve never experienced.’ Attenborough’s quote had me thinking about how the rich—who’ve never experienced poverty—demonise the poor. Jane Smith is an artist, zoologist and poet. The combination gives her an authorial voice. Her artwork illustrates her journey. Harris, St Kilda, North Uist, Eigg, Loch Archaig, Argyll Hotspot, Knapdale, Islay, Dumfries, and even...

Write what you know. Former Met Police commander and bestselling author John Sutherland offered a bonus as a marketing gizmo. The book’s release (at the end of April 2025) was paired with a limited edition Speyside Single Malt whisky named after the novel. Fuck. Wish I’d thought of that for my novel Beastie . I could have released a limited-edition child molester fresh from the police cells. Set in the Scottish Highlands, The Castle follows...

It’s over three years since Putin’s tanks sat on Ukraine’s borders. The world watched and wondered what he would do next. Jen Stout, Night Train to Odesa Covering the Human Cost of Russia’s War is an antidote to the moron’s moron, Trump's blather. The American President after brow-beating President Volodymr Zelensky and promising to end the Ukrainian war in a day has scheduled a meeting with Putin in Siberia. His press conference is cringe...

Winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize, The Fall was reissued in 2025. I got this book for my favourite girl in the world. But her dad read a bit. And that was that. Said there was a death on the first few pages. It would remain unread. That was my failing. My fall. ‘Is that Mog?’ he said. Nobody had called me Mog since I was at school. ‘Have you heard?’ ‘Heard what?’ I said. ‘Rush.’ ‘Chris Rush?’ ‘Yeah…’ ‘He’s dead.’ Chapter 1 begin with a...

Lynne Tillman (2023) Mothercare On Ambivalence and Obligation. Mothercare is an autobiographical essay by writer Lynne Tillman. I haven’t read any other of her works. My mum had Alzheimer’s. Most conversations with others end with me reminding them, ‘Just shoot me’. The issues Tillman discuss aren’t foreign to me. She’s American with a healthcare system that is both near the best and the worst as it bankrupts many and excludes others in the way...

According to William Kemarck’s 1924 model contagion follows an S-shaped curve. The assumption was that those susceptible would become infected. Infect others, recover or die and go to heaven or hell, as in Christianity. In epidemiology, the reproduction number, or R , indicates how many new cases a single infected individual causes. If R is greater than 1, an outbreak grows. If it falls below 1, stops. Nobody goes to heaven or hell. R > 1: It...

Scandinavian noir. Happy New Year is set in Skane near Malmo. It involves a murder mystery. Seventeen-year-old Jennifer Wiksell goes missing after a New Year’s party—involving teenagers and drink—in the Anderssons’s house to bring in 2019. Jennifer’s parents, Max and Lollo are simultaneously holding a party for adults. Something they traditionally do. The adult Andersonns attend. Both Fredrik and Nina are scared their house will be trashed. They...