WITH Covid and staff shortages becoming the default excuse for poor service and faulty products it is sad to see the malaise spreading to the world of publishing. Errors there are so visible and so irritating to readers. For publishers they are so difficult and costly to correct. In specialist areas, editing shortfalls can bring onerous penalties and litigation. Not all that long ago even the merest typo was a rarity. Now, at least a couple or so such errors can be expected in the average bookshop-bought volume. Regardless of how well-established and accepted is the publisher. And all bets… Continue reading
THE mind refuses to stop. It seems to be in permanent overdrive. Refusing to shut down. Unresponsive to any attempt at braking, or changing direction. And it is getting worse, more insistent, taking a tighter hold and blocking any alternative thoughts or distractions. Endlessly dwelling on Russia’s brutal and… 
IT is probably tempting fate when less than two months of the twelve have passed to declare “This is my book of the year”. But that’s the way things have been since I turned the final page of Should We Stay or Should We Go and fell into several moments of… 
MUCH joy tempered by bouts of shock and sadness. Such is the lot of family historians everywhere. Something I can well attest to after recent foraging in the foliage of my family tree. Anyone joining this global corps of addicts soon learns that tracking down their ancestors is a long… 
EMERGENCY service workers are well known for their macabre sense of humour; for having a giggle with the gore. It is, as they will attest, the only way they can cope with the scenes that daily confront them. The dead and dying, the mortally mangled, bodies broken almost beyond repair. 