Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale

Posted by Jane Gallagher on May 28, 2008 10:38 PM

By Jane Gallagher

“Notes From An Exhibition� begins with the death of brilliant artist Rachel Kelly. But she is much more than that as the story slowly unfolds.
A mother of four, a wife and a woman both blessed and cursed with bipolar disorder. We briefly meet Rachel as she rises from her slumber to answer her artistic calling in the first chapter before her swift demise.
But it is what she leaves behind that provides the narrative force. In the studio where she dies, along with the half-eaten chocolate biscuits where her teethmarks still remain, are a series of startling new work.

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Ivan The Terrible by Anne Fine

Posted by Jane Gallagher on May 22, 2008 2:11 PM

Ivan the Terrible by Anne Fine

By Jane Gallagher

Author Anne Fine has written numerous books for all ages.
However, it is through her work as a children’s novelist that she has won the most recognition.
Her children’s story, Madame Doubtfire was made into a film with Hollywood actor, Robin Williams, between 2001 and 2003 she was appointed the Children’s Laureate and she has won many prizes for fiction.

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Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind - by Sean Longden

• Tags:
• Dunkirk
• Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind
• Sean Longden

Posted by Digital Editor on May 21, 2008 10:52 AM

Tradition tells us that the dramatic events of the evacuation of Dunkirk, in which 300,000 British servicemen escaped the Nazis, was a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.
As the propaganda wheels turned, there was no room for tales of a poorly trained army, for stories of the drunken soldiers who refused calls to leave the cellars, or for details of the 2,472 guns, 75,000 tons of ammunition and 162,000 tons of petrol that were abandoned on the shores.

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Prose not Prozac?

Posted by Jane Gallagher on May 18, 2008 10:39 PM

I spent yesterday at http://www.thebrindley.org.uk/ in Runcorn at an event organised by The Reader to celebrate The National Year of Reading.

The theme for May is Mind, Body Spirit and the event was tailored around this. I had never been to The Brindley before, but it is a real find. Just off the M57 motorway with a free car park the centre is an Aladdin's Cave of all things creative. I will be back.

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Jane Costello

Posted by Jane Gallagher on May 15, 2008 9:04 AM

Bridesmaids

It’s not every day you get to say that you once worked with a best-selling author.
And it’s not every day that we report the presence of a best-selling writer in our circulation area.
But Jane Costello or Jane Wolstenholme, as she is better known, ticks both boxes and is hotly tipped to become the next big thing in “Chick-Lit� following the publication of Bridesmaids, a debut novel which has been sold to all the major booksellers and supermarkets

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Book of the Month: Waterloo Sunset by Martin Edwards

• Tags:
• Harry Devlin
• Martin Edwards

Posted by Jane Gallagher on May 9, 2008 6:02 PM

I first came across the fictional lawyer/detective Harry Devlin more than 20 years ago when I was given the task of reviewing books during my first job in journalism at The Ormskirk Advertiser.
I loved the fact that the action was set in a familiar landscape and I confess I was strangely attracted to the central character. But then I felt the same way about Columbo!

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