Archives for Literature
HIP BOOK REVIEW: Escape From Germany – Another Side
You Can Go Now…But Leave the ButterBy Barbara SchultzThe Book Press, £ BY VICTORIA KINGHAM A few weeks ago we previewed Barbara Schultz’s memoir of her mother, who escaped from…
Poetry Corner: heatwaves
PETE DONOHUE the memory of rain upon this land dragged from a cooler distance called out several weeks beforehand when times seemed somehow greener squeezes a tear out onto my…
What’s in the Air? A new graphic novel rises
VICTORIA KINGHAM Artist Jude Montague, ever interested in the history of radio and TV, has produced a lively and sometimes extraordinary graphic novel, detailing the beginnings of radio in Manchester.…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Establishment and Fascism
If We Tolerate This By Daniel TrillingPublished by Picador, 2026, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON This timely book is subtitled ‘How the British establishment made the Far Right respectable’. A…
Poetry Corner: Queen Victoria’s Hat
TIM BARLOW One day I’ll climb the Empire State with you To fly a flag and go down on one knee But just for now our love is clandestine This…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Challenging the Hope Deficit
Making A MovementBy Barney CullumPublished by Acropolis, 2023, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON Those paying attention to world affairs today know there is something of a ‘hope’ deficit. It is…
Poetry Corner: writing my will on the toilet
PETE DONOHUE i’m writing my will on the toilet drinking strong coffee laden with whiskey waiting for that familiar movement of mind & bowels when i’ll think about what i…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Oil be Damned Part Six
The Future of Agriculture By Sarah BearchellPublished by Icon Books, 2025, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON This book is pretty good on the crises that are coming, yet a bit…
Poetry Corner: Hastings Fishing Bar
PETE DONOHUE gulls standing sentinel on net shop apex queens & kings of black boarded jungle charabancs rattle over pot-holed pathways laden with freshly scooped silver sea fish beach boats…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: On the Trail of Jack-In-The-Green
Hellebore : ‘The Green Issue’Available from Bookbuster, £ BY TIM BARTON In 1977 Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull penned his classic song Jack-In-The-Green. His ‘Jack’ ‘quietly sits under every tree’,…
Poetry Corner
NEVER AGAIN OLI SPLEEN Overwhelmed by a world That will not hear the cries That twists the truth That lies That gaslights and denies Enables genocide In self-defence disguise Labelling…
HIP BOOK REVIEW: Unashamedly Subjective and Personal
Sheila: Portrait of an Unknown ArtistBy Teresa ThornhillPublished by Dornberger books, £14REVIEW BY FELICITY LAURENCE Sheila Denning was a brilliant painter who lived during the twentieth century, from 1920 to…
Poetry Corner: Realpolitik
WILLIAM BULLIN Realpolitik – Sweet as Lemons If Jesus had been crucified on Hastings's seafront outside a chip shop, they might have rubbed salt into his wounds and offered him…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW – Oil Be Damned: Part Five
Extractive Capitalism By Laleh KhaliliPublished by Profile, 2025, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON Khalili’s new book is unexpectedly timely. Its subtitle is ‘how commodities and cronyism drive the global economy’.…
Poetry Corner
Molly The BourneBEN BRUGES From some distance in time, Turner’s print centres the stream, rushing down towards the sea, a foot-bridge over this open sewer links the impoverished fishing community…
HIP BOOK REVIEW Escape Or Die: A Refugee’s Tale
The Right of PassageBy Julian Beecroft (with Sheri Blaney) Published by The History Press Hardback £25REVIEW BY HUGH SULLIVAN This book traces the endeavours of one German Jewish family to…
Poetry Corner: winter shower
PETE DONOHUE the quietude takes willpower to abandon so distant from the rush of morning soundscape each movement drops the temperature with cruelty & routine pain kicks off this newest…
Red Rhymes for Valentines
NICK PELLING and HELEN MURPHY Henry Normal, Janine Booth and Attila the Stockbroker are setting out on a tour of various Sussex seaside venues, bringing radical and left-inclined lines to…
HIP BOOK REVIEW: Days of Future Utopias
Boom! The Exploding Cinema and the New London UndergroundBy Duncan ReekieREVIEW BY KERRI SHARP St Leonards-dwelling filmmaker, author, artist and performer Duncan Reekie has recently compiled and published an impressive,…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Scary Tales and Local Terror
Hollington in Supernatural Tales and Folklore Lowlife Publishing, £ from BookbusterHellebore : ‘The Mirror Issue’ £ from BookbusterREVIEW BY TIM BARTON This time around, we give you another folklore-oriented review!…
Poetry Corner: LAST LAMENT
OLI SPLEEN I was broken from the winter I was washed up on the shore 'til you came to me and calmed me Pulled a splinter from my paw Once…
Poetry Corner: Growing up in the seventies
ALAN PEPPER Buying my clothes Boots and togs -- Huckells Two plus one Underground Get the latest sounds That's doing the rounds -- Record shop Stylus Disc Jockey Meeting girls…
HIP BOOK REVIEW: How the Vote was Won
Mary Raleigh Richardson: The suffragette arsonist who slashed the Rokeby VenusBy Helena Wojtczak, Hastings Press, 2025, pb £, hb £25REVIEW BY VICTORIA KINGHAM The vagaries of the Art world are…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Jewish not Zionist
By Marilyn GarsonCircaidy Gregory Press (UK edition 2025)REVIEW BY FELICITY LAURENCE Marilyn Garson’s book Jewish not Zionist was published in late 2024 in her home country of Aotearoa New Zealand.…
Poetry Corner
town of poets PETE DONOHUE in the cobwebbed glow of our basement kitchen where moths and wasps have given up the ghost i perch on the edge of the autumn…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Left Behind
By Paul CollierPublished by Penguin Books, 2025, rrp £ (PART 2 OF 2)BY TIM BARTON Part Two of Left Behind is titled ‘Spiralling Up’, and is a detailed look at…
Poetry Corner
Boredom ALISON YOUNG My friends are always working My boyfriend’s in the shop; My cat is always sleeping - I might as well get a job! Imperial Leather ALISON YOUNG…
HIP POETRY PREVIEW: Poet Town
The Poetry of Hastings & Thereabouts Published by Moth Light Press, 10th September 2025RRP: £ paperback, £ photo editionPREVIEW BY PETE DONOHUE It’s almost upon us – the much-anticipated publication…
Poetry Corner
HASTINGS WIND SHARON LISA RHODES Hastings wind whispers stories old Of asylums closed and stories untold A community woven frayed and strong Where empathy’s thread runs life long They came…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Left Behind
By Paul CollierPublished by Penguin Books, 2025, rrp £ (PART 1 OF 2) BY TIM BARTON Collier’s project here is to discuss what he calls ‘a new economics for neglected…
HIP POETRY REVIEW: Where Fairies Once Dwelt
By Jemia De BlondevilleDe Blondeville Press, 2025, £ All proceeds toHastings wellbeing groupsREVIEW BY PETE DONOHUE Jemia De Blondeville has been around on the Hastings poetry scene for a good…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: The Lie of the Land
By Guy ShrubsolePublished by Penguin Books, 2025, rrp £, Bookbuster price £ BY TIM BARTON Guy Shrubsole is the author of the bestselling The Lost Rainforests of Britain. His latest…
Poetry Corner: ONE MORE TURN
BEN FAIRLIGHT Now that our sun softens its glare To smile among shape-shifting starling clouds As jackdaws call in startled crowds That gift a fifth dimension to the tainted air,…
HIP BOOK REVIEW Strangers and Intimates: The Rise & Fall of Private Life
By Tiffany JenkinsPublished May 2025 by Pan Macmillan, hardcover, price £15REVIEW BY VICTORIA KINGHAM In 1948, when George Orwell published 1984, he imagined the Thought Police. That is, he imagined…
Poetry Corner: Rooks at Stonegate Station
BEN FAIRLIGHT A jolt, a dull clatter, and doors suck open Raucous caws with cold-fronted air honed High in the thin trees, where nine black frazzles Squabble over six twiggy…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Terminal Transmissions
By Paul GreenPublished by Terminal Press, 2025, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON This new book by locally based author and poet Paul Green channels the spirit of J G Ballard.…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Vassal State
by Angus HantonPublished by Swift Press, 2025, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON In the 1880s, chief Concomly, of the Native American Chinook tribe, “tried to develop a system of equitable…
HIP REVIEW: The Eyes Have It
Cancelled Confessions, by Claude Cahun Translated by Susan De MuthThin Man Press, new edition 2024, £27VICTORIA KINGHAM The first image inside the new edition of Claude Cahun’s Disavowals, more literally…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Practicing Social Ecology
By Eleanor FinleyPluto, 2025, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON It is increasingly obvious that global capitalism, in its industrial mode, is creating an environmental crisis of epic proportions. It is…
Poetry Corner: LIKE DEJA VU
OLI SPLEEN The present I hold only in contempt For it is now and now and always now Whereas the past embroiders on itself With recollection’s corners worn by time…