https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict_in_2024 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0ep0j83p7o Nathan Thrall’s account of a traffic accident where a bus flipped and six kindergarten children and a teacher escorting them were burnt to death and others injured was the winner of The Pulitzer Prize. It focuses on the life of one parent, Abed Salama, mirroring A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by...

I ripped through The Cloisters . Katy Hays’s Sunday Times bestseller is one of those poor-little-rich-girl books where you don’t really need to think. That’s a begrudged compliment. It’s one of those books I don’t really think I should like, which is a way of saying I’m better than that (when, in fact, I’m lying, which you would expect). The heroine is Ann Stilwell. Her goal is to escape Walla Walla, which was the spiritual home of Walt Whitman...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Rob_a_Bank_%282024_film%29?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.netflix.com/title/81254312 My eldest brother Stephen (SEV to his mates) was a bank robber. No, he wasn’t really. But he got arrested for attempting to rob the two banks in Clydebank Shopping Centre about 40 years ago. The police forensics swabbed his hair and declared there were traces of it in the backseat stockings. That showed that he’d pulled...

Being about stuff I'm planning to do for Christmas, of course! For the last couple of years, I've tried to come up with some Christmas-themed stories in addition to whatever is going on in Josiah and Archibald's rather odd world (which is also Christmas-themed at the moment, by happy coincidence!). This year, I've made a start with Christmas Pan-to , which considered the likely conversation between some of the items in a hardware shop window at...

Thirty Four Kilometres from where I live is Newgrange , and this morning the winter solstice took place. The site is believed to be over 5000 years old, and today is the shortest day and the longest night in Ireland. Its a time of stories being told around fires, of staying close to the light and ignoring the darkness around. And the world today is in a very, very dark place. So we console ourselves with stories, tales and conversations...

Luckenbooth in Edinburgh dialect means Lockedbooth, the kind stall holders carted about to sell goods. Jenni Fagan whittles down her writing to what is true. She’s full of surprises. So when the devil’s daughter rows away from a Scottish island in a coffin made by her father and ends up in Leith docks, it’s no bigger surprise than Mary Anne McLeod leaving Tong, marrying Fred Trump and fathering the devil’s child Donald. The structure of the book...

Chapter Nine – Do you still hope to venture into a ‘significant other’ pair? Why / why not? Donna Yes, even for companionship in my old age. Alyss I would love a friend, a partner, someone who cares what happens to me, someone to be a shoulder to cry on and offer a smile of encouragement when things get tough… someone who knows if I am sick, or need help… but as time wears on, I am now not so sure I could merge my independent life with someone...

Question Eight – Traditionally, faith systems and social systems prefer women in a ‘paired off’ state. How have you navigated such thoughts and spaces? Donna I’m lucky that neither my family or my faith system has pressured me in any way. Alyss, I have learnt to keep quiet. I have sat in prayer circles where families with children are prayed for, as that’s what people believe in and that’s what the Bible calls for. The social system of holiday...

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store was Barrack Obama’s Pick for Book of the Year. You’d expect that. Much of the book is set in the years of the Great Depression, 1936. At the very bottom of the heap were the black man and woman. Standing beside them, but slightly above them were the immigrant whites, the Jews, whom the world could burn for all they cared. Top of the heap of Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania those with some education like Doc Roberts...

Tracy King is the exception to the rule, rule. She’s working class. She got educated. She got a book published by one of the big five (or four) publishers. And, oh yeh, her dad got murdered. I’d read about what happened next in The Observer. She starts but not at the beginning. Setting the scene: I was born to working-class parents. Mum, Jackie was tiny. She worked part-time as a secretary but really was a full-time mum. Dad worked abroad He was...