Portals of Discovery

Portals of Discovery is a fascinating new book by George Norrie, the second Baron Norrie of Wellington, New Zealand.

Lord George Norrie has had a fascinating life. He has served as a member of the armed services as a soldier, worked as a horticulturalist and is, by inclination, an entrepreneur and has served as a parliamentarian.

In his memoir which is frank and honest, he raises some very interesting points. For example he argues that the choices that we make during our lifetime should not, usually, be considered to be mistakes.

He concurs with the Irish author James Joyce, they are not to be considered to be mistakes, they are, "portals of discovery," or gateways inot new worlds and are opportunities for bus to learn more about life.

Lord Norrie is a delight as he does not take himself too seriously and employs a self-deprecating wit and casts an eye on contemporary life.

He details the story of his life that begins in the Gloucestershire of the Second World War, to South Africa, New Zealand and the Middle East.

He shares with his readers an important account of the vital role that the House of Lords plays in the examination and reviewing of new proposed legislation, pointing out some changes that he was able to introduce to legislation as it progressed through the Upper Chamber on key environmental matters.

His time in parliament was brought to a somewhat abrupt termination when reductions in the number of hereditary peers allowed to sit in the House of Lords was reduced, but he is still very active in helping to look after the natural world.

The key themes of this memoir are self-knowledge and the importance of looking for new understandings.

It is published by the Book Guild and in hardback it costs £14.95 and is available here from our own bookshop and gift shop >>> https://goo.gl/AzQ0XD, but do please remember if it is a Christmas present, do please use the express delivery option.

Broccoli and Bloody-Mindedness

This is the story of Antonia Lister-Kaye as she takes a highly illuminating look back over her roller-coaster of a life.

She was born prematurely and was not a wanted child, in army barracks in the year of 1931.

She had cerebral palsy, yet she had a mind that was sharp and she had what was described as "a sense of fun."

Her childhood was chaotic and tinged with rage, some naughtiness and a few escapades and narrow scrapes.

Somehow, and it has to be said, the odds were somewhat stacked against her, Antonia was able to attend university and after leaving university she took up a career as a teacher in London.

She discovered sex and found that she quite like it and, after a few exciting and exhilarating years she, perhaps unexpectedly, got married to Hugo.

This brought about adventures of their own, as Hugo took her off to live in the African country of Nigeria.

Some time later they move to South Africa where Antonia discovers apartheid and realises that she hates it, which brings her suppressed rebellious nature to the surface.

She decides that she will make her way into Black zones that are normally forbidden to white people.

How does she do this? By the simple expedient of selling coffins ad teaching black students.

The South African authorities find her attitudes if not in breach of the apartheid regulations, certainly somewhat disturbing so they "invite" the family to return to the UK.

Domestic tasks were beyond her -due to three small children- and she eventually suffers from a breakdown in her physical health, with resultant chronic back pain.

Eventually Hugo leaves her and things get a little chaotic.

She finds that teaching is now too physically demanding and so she takes the decision to retrain as a psychotherapist, which results in more years of work that she found utterly fascinating and rewarding, in the main.

In later years she has campaigned for the re-legalisation of cannabis for medical use and when asked recently by her doctor how she had survived so long she responded with the improtal line: "Broccoli and bloody-mindedness!"

The book is illustrated with photographs and it is an autobiography that really shoulds be bought as a  Christmas present for those who like autobiographies about real people.

It is published by Matador at £7.99 and is available for purchase here >>> https://goo.gl/AzQ0XD but od use the express delivery option if you ant it before Christmas.

The Conisbrough Chronicles

This book, written by McMullen Country, tells the history of the Conisbrough family down through the last 1,000 years.

Seen through the eyes of several different narrators, we read the history of this great family as they amble through the last Millennia as they interrelate and interact with other families and characters, often with utterly disastrous consequences. Usually for them and not for the Conisbrough family members, however!

We see how the family participated -even sometimes if only in vaguely tangential ways- with the great and the good and the small and the not all that good, really, figures of British history.

We learn of what things were really like in the Middle Ages (it's filled with stuff you probably never knew until you picked this book up)  the goings on (diverse and interesting)  at the Court of Queen Elizabeth I, what the English Civil War was like (at least from the point of view of the Conisbrough family) and the dark doings that took place during the Industrial Revolution.

We meet greedy people, mad people, sad people and bad people and the third part of the book brings us right up to date with the relations between the Conisbrough family and the modern world.

And the great thing is? The entire book is all culled from the fertile imagination of McMullen Country, as the Conisbrough family is a work of fiction!

He reports, somewhat gleefully, that his "proof reader said she had never read anything like it!" which he, probably wisely, chose to take as a compliment.

This book will make a nifty stocking filler this Christmas so please quickly your copy from our book shop, here >>> https://goo.gl/AzQ0XD. Probably better to use "express" options for delivery, now.

That's Christmas: May it Please You, Madam

That's Christmas: May it Please You, Madam: May it Please You, Madam, by Neil Hickman, is just the type of book that I love. It is sub-titled a little book of legal whimsy and it c...

Salvage

In  Dublin author's Bernadette Quinn's new novel, Salvage, she explores a situation of marital crisis and destruction.

Based on events from real life -not those of the author- the novel tells the story of a typical Irish couple, Pam Cronin and Pat McElroy.

They meet, by chance, at a seminar. He is a youthful and ambitious architect, she is an equally youthful and equally ambitious newly qualified medical doctor.

They meet again and quickly realise that they are falling very deeply in love  and quite soon they are married and have two children.

However, their married life takes a change for the worse when Pam wishes to return to work as a doctor. Perhaps somewhat inexplicably, Pat forbids this from happening.

In order to appease her husband, Pam  acquiesces to his arguments that she should be a stay at home mother and concentrate on raising their two children.

This is, however, the start of what eventually become serious problems within their marriage.

With the passage of time their relationship deteriorates more and more. Pam attempts to raise these important issues with her husband but he dismisses her concerns. As far as he is concerned they have the perfect marriage and any problems that Pam perceives are only within her own mind.

Perhaps in order to shock him into realising the severity of their marital disharmony, Pam suggests a trial separation, he is angry and very dismissive of the idea. But demands that if they separate, that he would seek custody of their two children.

Aware that their marriage is, in fact, dying, Pam realises that she must now make plans to create a new life for herself, a life that does not involve her husband or her children.

However, fate takes a hand when Pam is severely wounded when she attempts to save a child who is in danger of being run down by a bus.

She is alone in her hospital bed  and she begins to think about her life and her family. Will she be able to continue with her life as a wife and mother or could she decide to carry out her plans for a new and different life, facing the world, alone?

This is an emotionally charged and highly realistic novel and will make an excellent Christmas present for those for whom Mills and Boon is not their cup of tea.

It is published by Matador at £9.99 and can be bought here >>> https://goo.gl/AzQ0XD.

Emotions of a Book

In his book "Emotions of a Book" author Guido Parisi explores the links between the author and his novel.

In a way that many might feel follows on in the tradition of Six Characters in Search of an author, the important 1921 play by fellow Italian Luigi Pirandello, this arguably equally important work explores the relationships between the author and the book that the author is creating.

Does the book have a personality of its own? Is it, in fact, a living creature in its own right?

Parisi argues that this point of view can be extended to all other artistic categories, the musical, artistic, dramatic, painters, sculptors and so forth.

Written by lecturer, teacher and a professor of literature, Emotions of a Book is a work that belongs on the bookshelves of anyone with even a passing interest in the arts and the meaning of life.

Although a work that touches on a great many different, yet, in reality, related themes (the arts, history, the nature of love and friendship, truth and so on) it is written in a style that is easily accessible by anyone who cares to read it.

The ideas that flow through and from this book are important and this book will make a excellent Christmas present for anyone who loves the arts and life in general.

It is published by Matador at £10.99 andis available for purchase here >>> https://goo.gl/AzQ0XD.

Rasmus

Rasmus is a dark and entertainingly cynical take off of the television industry, written by P J Vanston.

Rasmus. Exactly who, or what, is Rasmus?

He appears to be a TV visionary, a producer of reality television shows, but he has a desire to push, pull and cajole the genre to either scale untold heights, or to plumb the lowest levels of some post-Dante vision of Hell.

Take your pick.

His programming corrupts all who participate,  all who watch it and his rivals in the television industry, worldwide.

Great and terrible things happen, people will die live (if you'll pardon that expression) on TV, celebrities will be consumed, no, make that celebrities will be eaten and all for higher ratings.

All culminating in Death Hunt compared by the bouncy Alicia McVicar, where the name of the game is delete or be deleted.

Of course, nothing like this could ever happen in real life. Or Could it?

Not for the feint of heart this book is published by Matador at £8.99 and will make a superb Christmas present who like their fiction to be thrilling, satirical and just a little off the wall.

You can buy it here from our own book and gift shop which you will find here >>>   https://goo.gl/m5aVoo.