Tours & Series | Top 5 Reads from The Children’s Bookshow 2023 | line-up 3

Although The Children’s Bookshow hits the road in the Autumn, tickets to many shows have already sold out and the remainder are selling fast. All performances include a free book for every child.

Marina Warner, the historian, mythographer, art critic, novelist and short story writer, forms a persuasive case for fairy tales being a crucial repository of human understanding and culture in her very short introduction published by OUP. After all, they have the same core ingredients as most adult fiction: archetypal characters, conflict, desire, injustice, high octane drama, overcoming challenges, hope and heroism, beauty and blissful immersion in alternative worlds which reignite creativity and inspire new ideas. Their surreal magical quality and captivating illustrations make for a visual feast and offer a form of escapism from the real world around us. Continue reading Tours & Series | Top 5 Reads from The Children’s Bookshow 2023 | line-up 3

Review | Wicked Enchantment selected poems by Wanda Coleman (Ed.) Terrance Hayes

The selected poems of Wanda Coleman, edited by the American poet Terrance Hayes, and published in the UK under the title Wicked Enchantment, has brought her back into the spotlight. Considered to be the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles, she died in 2013 age sixty-seven.

Wanda Coleman, like Gwendolyn Brooks before her, has much to tell us about what it is like to be a poor black woman in America,” Tony Magistrale, Black American Literature Forum Continue reading Review | Wicked Enchantment selected poems by Wanda Coleman (Ed.) Terrance Hayes

BookBlasts® | Top 10 Black Classics for independent minds | June 2020

The prolific outpouring of support in the press, book trade newsletters and across social media in the wake of the brutal murder of George Floyd in eight minutes and forty-six seconds in Minneapolis gives a glimmer of hope at a time of pandemic bleakness and flawed leadership.

The murder of a black citizen at the hands of a white policeman, and protests against it, is nothing new, and is not only an American problem, but “shooter bias” is prevalent in Britain and Europe too. The 1967 film In the Heat of the Night starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger is a must-see film classic. Continue reading BookBlasts® | Top 10 Black Classics for independent minds | June 2020

Guest Feature | Leila Sackur interviews John Robert Lee (ed.) Saint Lucian Writers and Writing

Saint Lucian Writers and Writing edited by John Robert Lee is an indispensable author index of poetry, prose and drama available from Papillote Press. His other publications include Collected Poems 1975-2015, Canticles and Elemental. A new collection of poems, Pierrot, will be published by Peepal Tree Press in Leeds in February 2020.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am Saint Lucian, lived there for most of my life, been involved with the arts, literature and media from the late 1960’s, from about nineteen. I attended the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados from 1969, finished off my degree at Mona, Jamaica in the early 1980’s, began work with the library service in St. Lucia in 1979 after working as a teacher, cultural officer and radio announcer and producer. Literature, theatre, literary journalism, media (print and electronic), libraries and teaching have been my main interests and occupations. I am a practising Christian and Bible teacher and preacher with my local Baptist church.

When you were growing up, what books had an impact on you?
My mother encouraged me to read and memorize poetry, my father bought me books; I read the usual Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, William and Jennings books, Enid Blyton, fairy tales and many of the classics. Comics of course. I had an early exposure to newspapers, principally the Trinidad Guardian which my father got daily. My father and mother were readers and encouraged reading. A year or so before I went to university, I took A-level classes in Literature and became introduced to the moderns – Eliot, D H Lawrence, Philip Larkin et al – read many anthologies and these have had a lifelong impact and influence. Continue reading Guest Feature | Leila Sackur interviews John Robert Lee (ed.) Saint Lucian Writers and Writing

BookBlasts® | Top 10 Reads for Independent Minds | November-December 2018

As we head out of the old, into the new, year, our top 10 reads to see us out feature superb writing from China, fin-de-siècle Paris, the Middle East, Istanbul by way of New York,  Switzerland and Cuba, in no particular order. @maclehosepress @carcanet @BanipalMagazine @melvillehouse @dedalusbooks @NBNi_books @hoperoadpublish @oneworldnews @jamiebulloch @PennedintheM

A Hero Born: Legends of the Condor Heroes (Vol. 1) by Jin Young,  trs. Anna Holmwood (MacLehose Press) buy here

jin yong a hero b orn bookblast diaryThe author Louis Cha who died aged ninety-four on 30 October, wrote under the pen name Jin Yong. His books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide and been adapted into countless films, TV series, graphic novels and video games.  His works are all set during the rich and storied history of China. The first English translation of A Hero Born, the first of his 12-volume epic Legends of the Condor Heroes, was published earlier on this year by MacLehose Press. We include him here as a tribute to an unparalleled master storyteller.
Continue reading BookBlasts® | Top 10 Reads for Independent Minds | November-December 2018

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