Category Archives: Books and Films

Blogs on some of my favourite books and films. (Well at least those books and films I’ve got round to blogging about).

Something for the Weekend – Le cinéma à la française

Thanks to the popularity of Scandi drama, us Brits may finally have overcome our antipathy towards watching anything with subtitles. Here’s an eclectic choice of some French movies that might tickle your fancy. Le Bossu – On Guard (1997 Philippe de Broca) One of my favourite films, a French swashbuckler (think Errol Flynn but set […]

Something for the Weekend – Some German Literature Tips

I’m an inveterate reader of German literature, I’ve even written a nine-page critical essay on an obscure Austrian novel from the 1970s – Die Groẞe Hitze oder Die Errettung Österreichs durch den Legationsrat Dr Tuzzi. Read it? To be honest, neither have most Austrians. However, if you fancy settling down to rather less esoteric German […]

Outlaw King

Bloody Battle Scenes and Gutsy Heroes Come Together in a Visual Feast. Medieval Scottish History gets the Hollywood Treatment Yet Again. Outlaw King neatly sums up the adage that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. The eponymous king is Robert the Bruce, a thorn in the side to the English but a hero […]

In Praise of Book Clubs

As someone who tended to confine her reading to the greats from Austrian and German literature, interspersed with the obligatory English language classic novel, and preferably only reading works by authors who had been dead for a minimum of 50 years (with the exception of Jörg Mauthe and absolutely anything written by Wolf Haas), I […]

Highland Adventures – Jacobites in Literature

If like me you’re waiting to read the next book in the Outlander series until you’ve watched the next season on TV, here are some more Highland adventure stories to keep you going in the meantime. The Outlander series of books and the TV series which it has spawned have proven a massive international success, […]

The Good Soldier Schwejk – Jaroslav Hašek

Think of a cross between Dad’s Army and Father Ted and just as funny, this unfinished satirical novel by Jaroslav Hašek is the most translated novel in Czech literature. A trenchant anti-war novel, The Good Soldier Schwejk, like many a fine satire, still hasn’t lost its bite despite the passage of time. Thus the novel […]

Film Review: Pride

With the NHS currently under attack and junior doctors forced to go on strike, I thought I’d take a look at Pride, a recent British film set during the crushing of the miners’ strike and which examines the importance of unions and solidarity even with the most unlikely of partners! Pride joins a select group […]

Book Review: A Spool of Blue Thread – Anne Tyler

I read A Spool of Blue Thread at someone else’s suggestion. I had no idea what the book was about. Moreover, as an inveterate reader of German literature, I’d never heard of the author, Anne Tyler. I picked up the book, thinking to myself this is so not the type of book I would read. […]

Book Review: Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

Forget the Hollywood image of the monster with bolts in his neck, Frankenstein, written by the then 18 year old Mary Shelley, is an intriguing read as well as a morality tale, still as relevant for today, if not more so. Within Shelley’s tale of Victor Frankenstein who creates a being that turns into a […]

Foreign Book Review: Short Stories – Nikolai Gogol

Fancy some surreal satire? Then Gogol might just be for you. Often when you think of 19th century Russian literature you think of worthy tomes which you suspect might be rather heavy going. However the short stories of Gogol are a delight, of manageable size and definitely worth a read! As someone who has a […]

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