Michael Duggan
Second reading
“The top of the bookmark juts out from the pages of my copy of The Woodlanders like a tombstone marking the mortal remains of any hope I ever held of finishing the thing.”
Belly of the beast
The Booker-winning Marlon James takes on the fantasy genre with a novel sent in a phantasmagorical version of Africa
Border bard
“Patrick Kavanagh wrote about an Ireland that “froze for want of Europe”. He was thinking of an Ireland that history had removed from the mainstream of European culture”
How Top Boys topple down crime’s ladder
Too many prisoners rejoin society with no education, stable housing or job prospects. No surprise that more than half reoffend within a year
In the bleak midwinter
Christmas can be a bleak time of year. While some feel isolated, others are overwhelmed by the need for a perfect family Yuletide when their reality is different
My warnings to our spy watchdogs
Britain is under attack from Russia. And the government is blocking a Parliamentary report that details it