“Red Sky in Morning’

Simply excellent. In Red Sky in Morning Paul Lynch has woven an authentic and engrossing tale of desperate men, one who strives to escape, the other bent to do the catching. This is a brutal tale of misplaced men in a country that doesn't want them. Lynch's portrait of Faller is magnificent, n animal for … Continue reading “Red Sky in Morning’ →

Climate Change – my opening piece from a recent reading…

https://videopress.com/v/UK4r2yaC?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true You may need to turn your volume up!

“What We Can Know”

Oh dear. And I'm usually such a fan of Ian McEwan's work... What We Can Know was a real let-down. From my perspective, fundamentally flawed (and spoiler alert...) Setting the book in the middle of the twenty-second century: what was that all about? Not only completely unbelievable but distracting and unnecessary. The premise of the … Continue reading “What We Can Know” →

“The Seasons of Cullen Church”

I confess I couldn't get particularly excited about Bernard O'Donoghue's The Seasons of Cullen Church; in the main the poems felt a little insipid and insignificant, and the topics lacked a certain relevance (not being Irish, nor religious, nor knowing some of the people referenced). But they should still work for all of that. However, … Continue reading “The Seasons of Cullen Church” →

Virtual poetry reading event on Thursday 27th.

The 38th in a long-running series of events. Details in the link below: https://coverstorybooks.com/2026/08/23/contextual-38-in-four-days/

“After Fame”

We're told by the cover flaps that Sam Riveire's After Fame is a collection of 118 poems based - in some way shape or form - on Book 1 by the Roman poet, Martial. Which on the face of it is fair enough. However a significant proportion of the 118 are clearly not poems but … Continue reading “After Fame” →

IMPORTANT – FOR ALL INGRAM SPARK USERS

I have just discovered there is an opt-out to help prevent your books being sold to AI companies (which presumably means the default is ‘opt-in’…) You can find the opt-out link here (pass it on): https://www.ingramcontent.com/page/ai-opt-out

“House of Lords and Commons”

If I struggled with Ishion Hutchinson's House of Lords and Commons that was because all too often I felt the poems sacrificed meaning in order to be 'poetic'. Often too poetic. For a large chunks of time I had no idea what was being said, getting lost in over-long 'sentences' and the tricky syntax. I … Continue reading “House of Lords and Commons” →

“The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories”

I venture to suggest that The Melancholy Death and Oyster Boy and Other Stories (1997 in the US) was only published because Tim Burton was already famous. [Yes, the Tim Burton of 'Beetlejuice', 'Batman', 'Edward Scissorhands', 'Mars Attacks!' etc.] While the drawings are proficient, whacky and creepy, the writing isn't. Very few of the poems … Continue reading “The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories” →