Reading

The Kindle Report: does it beat paper?

I’ve owned a Kindle for almost a year now and so thought it was time for a comparison of ereading vs reading. I’ll look at several different categories, from the common issue of readability to more unexpected things like how…
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Capitalism & Slavery

This book does an excellent job of showing exactly how the development of British capitalism was dependent on slavery. The author is Eric Williams, an obscure PhD student at the time of writing, but later in life to become Prime Minister…
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The Silk Peacock by Hilary West

This is an interesting and very varied collection of short stories. The overall style is literary fiction, but there are some murder mysteries mixed in there too. Most of the stories are strictly realistic, but some have elements of fantasy,…
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Who needs Paradise? by Paula Harrold

I first met Paula Harrold when she was a pink-haired Oxford theology student who decorated her bedroom wall with a large scythe. I never expected her to write a romantic comedy. She has now done just that, but it’s not…
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Author interview – J.R. Crook

I reviewed J.R. Crook’s debut novel Sleeping Patterns on this blog a few weeks ago, and thought I’d follow up by asking the writer himself some questions. If you’re not familiar with the book, click here to read my review,…
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The 20 best Caribbean book blogs

Since moving to Barbados in December last year, I’ve been keen to discover more about Caribbean literature, and a great way to do that is by reading book blogs. It took me some time to search out the best ones,…
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Off-key stories hit the mark

I was excited to meet Courttia Newland at Bim Literary Festival here in Barbados earlier this year. He’s a British writer, but was here because his mother is Barbadian. I’d read his debut novel The Scholar when it first came…
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Tabucchi Week: Pereira Maintains

The most striking thing about Pereira Maintains is the narrative voice. It’s narrated in the third person, but the two words from the title, “Pereira maintains”, occur regularly throughout the book to qualify what we’ve just been told.
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