Gabrielle Griffiths’ debut novel Greater Sins is published by Penguin. So what? You might be thinking Well, let me tell you, that’s one of the big four or five publishers. It’s not newsworthy but it is a big deal in the rocky world of publishing. There’s no greater sin than jealousy. So I’ll shut up. Setting: Cabrach. I wasn’t sure if this was a real place. It is. Nearest town Huntly. Nearest big city Aberdeen. We’re in classic Lewis Grassic...

‘Time is blood.’ Stalingrad won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize, and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. Why does Antony Beevor’s account of a battle fought over 80 years ago still resonate? ‘The Great Patriotic War’ ideology derives from Stalingrad’s epic scale of the suffering and dead first appeared in Pravda . Around four million ‘German’ soldiers pushed into the Soviet Union. Around a quarter were Austrians, Romanians...

What does it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah? The Messiah is the way to God. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." The one who came from Heaven to take us back to Heaven. Jesus said, "In my father's house are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you I will come back to take you there." John 14:1-6. The Messiah is the mediator between God and man,...

Anna & Buster 410 Sussex Ave Buster & Anna Brown Pappa and Baba Tom A Swim! Tom's Pedal-car Plus Ankle-biter

Fingers crossed...

My current best Writers on AbcTales August 2025 5. luigi_pagano – Luigi 4. The Story Teller – JPB 3. Caldwell – Christopher 2. rhiannonw – Rhiannon 1. swindonwoody – Maggie And we have a promising newcomer, Carrie Brown.

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...

The author C S Lewis made a radio broadcast in the 1940s about people who said that they accepted Jesus as a great moral teacher but didn't accept his claim to be God. How could someone who mistakenly claimed to be God be a great moral teacher? The two don't go together. If Jesus believes he is God and he isn't, he is insane, like a man who thinks he is a poached egg. If Jesus knew he wasn't God and was lying, he would be the devil of Hell...