Like a rider at the top of a roller coaster’s first hill, our planet sits on the pinnacle of light and darkness, before plunging headlong into the next season. Summer is on its way, but before it arrives, we have a moment to look out over what awaits. RHETORIC & POETRY Is there anything more stereotypically…
At the end of the Victorian era, the women’s suffrage movement had an unexpected supporter. Sophia Duleep Singh was the daughter of the latest deposed Maharajah of Lahore, in India. As a teenager we was forced to give up his throne to the far-reaching British Empire. In part to prevent an uprising and in part…
RIVER OF INK by Paul M. M. Cooper An historical fable, full of rich exoticism, this book uses the tradition of epic saga and brilliant storyteller — like Scherazade. Asanka is the royal poet of a kingdom in Sri Lanka. As the book opens his king is awaiting the arrival of an invading army. He…
Fourteen Agatha Christie novels. Fourteen poisons. Just because it’s fiction doesn’t mean it’s all made-up … Today is the 125th birthday of Agatha Christie. Few readers can claim they don’t know her. Exceedingly prolific, she has never been out of print and is outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. She is a curious contradiction…
This is perfect kind of steampunk. It merely blurs the lines ever so slightly between fantasy and reality. Rather than imagining strange new worlds full of variant species or particle space travel, this book is set firmly in 1880s London. It is foggy, sooty and on the cusp of a new century.