Poetry Corner
connelley’s noir Pete Donohue Twitter: @petedonohuepoet wry raw restless & risky just how i like my women & whiskey die poor feckless & frisky leave your heart in san franciski. Stereotypically British or Let’s do Brexit Sometime Patrick Carabine Welsh…
We Can Be Heroes
HIP CLASSICS by SIMONE WITNEY Homer’s Iliad translated by Stephen Mitchell, Audiobook read by Alfred Molina 'Rage’ is the first word of the Iliad and its theme. ‘Anger’, says Achilles ‘far sweeter than trickling honey, expands in the breast like smoke’.…
Bookbuster Book Review: NOIR by Ken Champion
Review by Chris Connelley I read a fair amount of fiction, and most of the British stuff is clever, elegant and slight. Its miniaturist map takes in comfortably-off urban worlds peopled with journalists, politicians and psychiatrists, eating well, drinking too…
Roundabout By Mel Wright
Chris Connelley feels the love with a heart- warming tale of everyday folk fighting against all odds Avid readers of this column may recall a review of Mel Wright’s previous novel, You Can Save Me, which detailed the lives and…
Letter from a Wild West Hillbilly
No. 7: Weathering the winter winds in poetic style As autumn morphs into winter there are stop-start icy winds troubling our crazy coastline. I don’t welcome them. They tear through skin and bone with no care for comfort and show…
The Christmas Tree
By Roy Browning with illustrations by Mike Raxworthy reviewed by Pete Donohue When Phil and Ann Gill turned up with a typewritten poem at local illustrator Mike Raxworthy's studio he didn't realise he was about to agree to do a…
Write on in Hastings: Gavin Martin – Talking Musical Revolutions
Pete Donohue introduces: Hastings & St Leonards based music critic and performance poet, Gavin Martin, has interviewed or reviewed just about any artiste worth knowing about in the music industry over a distinguished career spanning almost four decades. 2016 now…
A HIP READ – Shine On, Marquee Moon by Zoe Howe
Review by Pete Donohue: It isn’t easy ro write a debut novel set within the music industry without slipping into rock ‘n’ roll clichés. Zoe Howe overcomes this problem by confronting it with full-on irony right from the start, allowing…
Bookbuster Book Review
Dream Brother the lives & music of Jeff & Tim Buckley By David Browne Fourth Estate, RRP £, available at Bookbuster for £ Review by Tim Barton Both Jeff and his father, Tim, were aware of ‘alcoholism, violence, and general…