Review of “Albert of Adelaide”, Howard L Anderson, SF Site, 2012
Original here. `And I must confess that until I stumbled across it I had forgotten reading this book or writing this review. The anthropomorphised animal is a staple of children’s…
Category: mealy mouthed
“the overbearing mother, the emotional repression, the teasing sort-of girlfriend, the constant guilt and fear ” – draft review of The Cure, Rachel Genn, TLS, 2011
The TLS ultimately used a much edited version of this review of a book I evidently didn’t like. Perhaps I was uncomfortable with the line “having sex with Séamus in…
Nthposition review of “The Book of Skin”, Steven Connor, 2003
This book is a good example of contemporary (well, 14 year old at this stage) academic writing in the humanities – jargon and theory rich, concerned with unpicking privilege and inequality…
How book reviewing works – my first thoughts on Raymond Tallis’ “The Mystery of Being Human”
Recently my review of Raymond Tallis’ “The Mystery of Being Human” appeared in the TLS. This review had a somewhat convoluted gestation. Put simply, I didn’t like the book much.…
Review of “The Mystery of Being Human” by Raymond Tallis, TLS, 15/02/17
Behind a paywall online, I have a review of Raymond Tallis’ The Mystery of Being Human : God,Freedom and the NHS, in the current TLS. Here’s the bit that you…
Four score and more: Review of “Mortal Coil” by David Boyd Haycock
In contast to David Adam, this is a book whose place in my mental library has diminished rather than increased in the years since – to the extent I had forgot…
Music For Another World. Ed. Mark Harding. SF Site review, 2011
This is a rather grumpy review. I found the writing in this anthology by and large ponderous and forced, too self-consciously “literary.” I think that is pretty clear from the…
Review of “A Time of Quarantine” by Katharine Haake, SF Site, 2013
When I was 13 I saved the £1 and 50p coins I got for working in the family shop and bought, in the now closed Waterstone’s on Dawson Street, Terry…
Séamus Sweeney 