Reviews and Comments

Brian Lavelle Locked account

brianlavelle@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 1 month ago

words & sounds & wanderings • “One thin cry / Between wavecrash and circling wolves of wind” • he/him • on Mastodon: mastodon.scot/@brianlavelle

This link opens in a pop-up window

Review of 'White Spines' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

I read White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector in a matter of days. What a brilliantly touching, off-centre memoir, intelligent, funny and poignant in the right amounts, with real warmth, and written with a deftness of style that’s irresistible.

It’s seems to me as much a book about people as it is a book about books, and a certain subset of books and those bookshops in which they can be found, if one is lucky or just persistent. At its heart is an obsession for, but also an absolute love of and interest in, books—in terms both of their contents and as objects—and the world of writers and publishing. I got so much from this, and that collecting isn’t such a bad thing after all (my wife will be delighted...). I really didn’t want it to end, but it has, alas, and I’m a bit sad about that.

Review of 'Living locally' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

What a heartwarming, sensitive, funny, poignant book this is: full of rare insights and wry observations on the Irish way of life as well as that of an ‘outsider’. These day-to-day tales of a life lived simply and with eyes and ears wide open to the countryside and its inhabitants is an absolute joy.

Review of 'Country Still All Mystery' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

As with much of Mark’s work, I didn’t want this volume of memorable and erudite essays on writers and the places they inhabit to end. Any encounter with the man leaves me with countless, enticing avenues to explore. A very highly recommended collection.

Gregory, Stephen: The woodwitch (1988, St. Martin's Press) No rating

Review of 'The woodwitch' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

A fascinating, horrifying, disturbing novel, quite unlike anything I've read before. This upset me greatly in places (if you've read it, you'll probably guess where) but I kept reading, desperate to see how the litany of revulsion would be concluded - or perhaps consummated would be a more apt descriptor. Truly extraordinary, and beautifully written, too.

Review of 'Loney' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

This review was originally posted on my No Time is Passing blog: notimeispassing.wordpress.com/2014/10/25/andrew-michael-hurley-the-loney/

The
Loney is Andrew Michael Hurley’s first novel, after two collections of short stories (The Unusual Death of Julie Christie and Cages And Other Stories). As usual for Tartarus Press, the book is sumptuously presented, the oblique miniature on the dustjacket giving nothing away about the novel’s contents but nonetheless setting the tone at just the right pitch right from the outset: a haunting, blurred landscape sliced through by a menacing swathe of trees; in the background stands the shadow of an old house; this glimpse no more than a far-off echo perhaps of the titular stretch of brooding coastline which although unspoken is one of the novel’s main protagonists.

On the surface, the book is the story of the narrator Smith (does he have a first name? Smith seems such an everyman surname…) and …

Timothy J. Jarvis: The Wanderer (Paperback, 2014, Perfect Edge) No rating

Review of 'The Wanderer' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

This review was originally posted on my No Time is Passing blog: notimeispassing.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/timothy-j-jarvis-the-wanderer/

The
Wanderer is the debut novel by Timothy Jarvis. I read it a couple of months ago and the book’s blend of Shielian ‘last man’ fantasy and time-twisted, oneiric horror has stayed with me ever since the last page. This review is a much-expanded version of a short post I felt I had to put on Facebook shortly after reaching the end of this brilliant, brilliant book.

Jarvis himself has described The Wanderer‘s charms as ‘Highlander meets Arthur Machen’s The Three Impostors, meets M.P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud. With booze.’ Even if somewhat tongue-in-cheek, with a write-up like that, how could one resist? And there is booze. That part of his mini-write-up isn’t tongue-in-cheek at all.

Let me start by saying that I can’t recommend this book enough to anyone with even a passing interest …

Iain Sinclair: American Smoke (2015, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) No rating

Review of 'American Smoke' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

A relatively slim volume, 'American Smoke' is an extract from Iain Sinclair's forthcoming (2011) book 'Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project'. Sinclair's prose is as sinuous and dreamlike as ever, and from the few pages here, which narrate a portion of an alternative US road trip without recourse to the car, I'm looking forward to reading the full book next year.