Literature Archives - Page 5 of 10

Fergie Rises: Competition Winners Announced

Sep 052014

Last week, following the launch in Glasgow and a media launch at Hampden of author Michael Grant’s ‘Fergie Rises: How Britain’s Greatest Manager Was Made In Aberdeen’, the books publishers, Aurum Press, kindly offered Voice two prize copies of the book.

David Innes, who reviewed the release for Aberdeen Voice was charged with the task of setting a question for readers to answer.

David asked:

“Which then player and future Dons manager accompanied Fergie to the harbour to welcome back The Red Navy from the ferryboat St Clair two days after the ECWC final in Gothenburg?”

Aberdeen Voice are delighted with the response, and glad to report that every single entrant to the competition gave the correct answer. It was of course Mark McGhee.

However, there are only two prizes, the two winners drawn are Ian Wright, Cove, and Alistair Duncan, Banchory. Thanks to all who entered and congratulations to the winners. Your details will be forwarded to Aurum press who will post your prize copies directly to you.

‘Fergie Rises’ Launch And Competition

Articles, Opinion No Responses »

Aug 292014

By David Innes.

Following last week’s launch in Glasgow and a media launch at Hampden, Michael Grant, author of Fergie Rises: How Britain’s Greatest Manager Was Made In Aberdeen, launched his book in the city where Sir Alex Ferguson first tasted real managerial success.

Michael was accompanied by heroes of the Fergie era, Neil Simpson and Neale Cooper. A respectable turnout at Aberdeen’s Waterstones saw Michael host a lively Q&A session where anecdotes and reminiscences delighted and informed those attending, some too young to have lived through the era.

The garrulous Cooper, in particular, was at his entertaining best, prompted by Simmie whose recollections were slightly less manic and animated, but no less warm.

What came across was that Sir Alex (‘We still call him ‘Boss’’, said Cooper), for all his snarling, strange logic and mind games, is still revered by those whose careers he founded. The reminiscences were affectionate and respectful and the gratitude heartfelt.

The author was delighted by the attendance and he and the ex-Dons were kept busy signing copies of the book, having commemorative photos taken with fans and buyers and chatting animatedly with those with particular memories of their own.

The publishers, Aurum Press, have kindly offered Voice two prize copies of Fergie Rises.

To enter the competition, just answer this:

Which then player and future Dons manager accompanied Fergie to the harbour to welcome back The Red Navy from the ferryboat St Clair two days after the ECWC final in Gothenburg?

Send your answer to competition@aberdeenvoice.com. Since the publisher has volunteered to mail the prizes directly to the winners, you’ll need to include your postal address with your entry. Good luck.

Fergie Rises: David Innes Reviews

Articles, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Aug 152014

By David Innes.

I feel sorry for Aberdeen’s intensely loyal and still proud younger generation of fans. In the same way as I would listen in awe to older relatives recount the 1947 Cup triumph and the 1955 title win, these young people can now only gain an insight to the triumphs of 35 years ago through dewy-eyed reminiscences of washed-up, ageing curmudgeons like me.

To them, and to those of us who were there, Fergie Rises may be almost biblical, as it tracks the UK’s most successful-ever manager’s genesis as he turned the Scottish and European game on its head during eight riotously-successful and controversy-packed years.

Wordsworth was probably a Barrow or Workington fan, but he predicted the 1980s for Dons fans, ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven.’

Michael Grant, Chief Football Writer at The Herald, has, for once, put aside his neutrality and written directly from his red heart about the most exciting time of our fitba lives.

Like his BBC colleague, Richard Gordon, Grant, on air, does not hide his allegiance, and whilst others purport to be fans of Partick Thistle or Dumbarton or St Mirren whilst toeing the media party line, the pair take the jibes in their stride and remain coolly professional, honest and unbiased. Fergie Rises has allowed this Highland loon the opportunity to cast aside neutrality and produce a labour of love.

The outline tale is familiar and bears no re-hashing here, but the author, as much out of interest as research, one imagines, has added significantly to the known narrative by interviewing those involved and several opponents of the era. With the benefit of elapsed time, the insights are fresh and new and the through-gritted-teeth admiration expressed by then bitter adversaries add a new dimension.

We weren’t popular, having shattered the incestuous and expected duopoly of you-know-who, but where there was bitterness, there is now an appreciation of Sir Alex’s single-mindedness in making Aberdeen the force that everyone feared, Scotland’s most successful-ever European representatives.

But above all that, it is Grant’s own passion that permeates and defines Fergie Rises and makes it the book that all of us would have loved to have written. Chapter titles like, ‘Be arrogant, get at their bloody throats’, ‘Ipswich fall to the Jock Bastards’ and ‘This season’s target is two trophies…minimum’ give a flavour of the content and the author’s personal buy-in.

Fergie Rises can rightfully take up position on your shelves next to your Leatherdale, Rickaby, Gordon and Webster tomes as an indispensible chronicle of the defining common sporting cause of NE Scotland.

Michael Grant will be signing copies of Fergie Rises at Waterstones, Union Street, Aberdeen on the evening of 27 August. We’re hoping to arrange an interview with him too

FERGIE RISES
Michael Grant
Aurum Press
ISBN 978 1 78131 093 9
319pp

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[Aberdeen Voice accepts and welcomes contributions from all sides/angles pertaining to any issue. Views and opinions expressed in any article are entirely those of the writer/contributor, and inclusion in our publication does not constitute support or endorsement of these by Aberdeen Voice as an organisation or any of its team members.]

Kerry Hudson’s Thirst Reviewed

Articles, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Jul 112014

By David Innes.

When Aberdonian Kerry Hudson’s debut novel Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma was reviewed in Voice about two years ago, I opined that it would be good to get an update on how Janie Ryan, that book’s central character, was getting on.

Resisting that reviewer plea, the author has turned her energies and talents to exploring a relationship born in unconventional circumstances, fulfilling the diverse but increasingly-convergent needs of a trafficked Siberian girl and a London security guard, both of whom have backstories of hurt and confusion.

The structure of Thirst sees the present-time gradual development of the pair’s relationship, a slow-burning one-step-forward-two-steps-back series of small joys and setbacks, juxtaposed with the history of horror, sleaze, cruelty and broken ambition experienced by both en route to personal fulfilment and Hackney.

You’ll care as much about these misfits as readers did about Janie Ryan, celebrating their simple joys and cursing the undeserved blows and external obstacles put in the way of their happiness. And it’s not only the main characters who are well-drawn and credible.

The immoral traffickers, Dave’s ill-starred mother, the party girl Shelley, the cabal of gossiping harpie-lites at the shop where the pair meet in unusual circumstances are all recognisable, if slightly caricatured, and add depth and colour as Dave and Alena circle each other warily and the denouement is played out.

Kerry Hudson has considerable dramatic abilities too, able to imagine the loneliness, terror and confusion of immigrants trafficked to London on false promises, the grime and filth the homeless have to endure, the oozing onion odour of the kebab shop downstairs, the sensory experiences of deliberately-inflicted bodily pain and the secure warmth and comfort of a cuddle with a loved one, no matter how fleeting or temporary.

Leaving the pair in Alena’s run-down Siberian hometown, Thirst ends on a hopeful note, and as with the author’s debut novel, it would be nice to know how they’re faring, if at all. On the other hand, perhaps the skill of the writer is to leave readers with enough information to imagine the outcome and future for themselves, and Kerry Hudson is proving to be a developing master of this art.

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/thirst/9780701188689
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4444090.Kerry_Hudson

Kerry Hudson – Thirst
Chatto & Windus
328 pp
ISBN 978-0-701-18868-9
£12.99

Hidden Aberdeenshire: The Coast Reviewed

Aberdeenshire, Opinion No Responses »

Jun 272014

David Innes reviews Hidden Aberdeenshire: The Coast by Dr Fiona-Jane Brown.

Hard on the heels of her well-received 2013 volume Hidden Aberdeen, Dr Brown shifts her authorial focus beyond the city boundaries to the traditional county of Aberdeenshire.

More precisely, she visits its coasts abutting the North Sea and Moray Firth, along the way unearthing tales and anecdotes from the area’s fascinating history.

An immediate tip of the hat to her for recognising that Aberdeenshire is a geographical and cultural entity, not a post-1974 local governmental fiefdom, a welcome approach for those of us who rant as Andrea or Norman refer crazily to ‘Banff, Aberdeenshire’ or ‘Gourdon, Aberdeenshire’ on STV News.

Publishing in the same pocket-friendly format as Hidden Aberdeen, and maintaining its economical but fact-packed 450-word/two-page feature format, it is, like its predecessor, extremely readable and informative. Organised in discrete geographical areas, it will be easy for readers to visit most of the places in each section in a long half day, or even less.

The excellent bibliography is a welcome additional resource for those who wish to dig a bit more deeply beyond the details in the book’s chapters.

It has been said of Hardy’s Return Of The Native that Egdon Heath, the windswept wilderness on which the action takes place, is the dominating and defining character. Whilst the sea, its shore and fertile hinterland provide the canvas, Hidden Aberdeenshire celebrates the people who have enriched history and folklore of these lands over the centuries.

Fascinating insights are given to the lives of flint miners, smugglers, heroes of shipwrecks, a war artist who chronicled the foreign exploits of TE Lawrence, Peterheid loon and unlikely Prussian hero Field Marshal James Keith and the proprietor of an ironically-named Blue Toon whorehouse.

You will warm to the outcry raised by St Fergus’s villagers when a well-meaning restorer removed the extra minute from the village clock, smile at the account of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle being given a keeker in a boxing bout aboard a Peterhead whaling boat and be reminded of how impressive a modern cultural icon is the Pennan phone box.

Just about all human life is within this extremely-readable compact volume’s pages, another triumph for the author. More please.

Hidden Aberdeenshire: The Coast
Dr Fiona-Jane Brown
Black & White Publishing
ISBN 978 1 84502 757 5
96 pp
£9.99

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Peterhead Porridge Reviewed

Articles, Opinion 1 Response »

Jun 162014

Described as ‘Ronnie Barker’s Porridge meets Gene Wilder’s Stir Crazy’, former inmate James Crosbie relates a number of tales of what went on behind the walls of that grim granite fortress once the doors had clanged shut. David Innes reviews.

It’s quite apposite that it’s been published now, with, in recent weeks, the replacement prison in the Blue Toon having had its first riot.

Despite the new prison’s much-acclaimed state-of-the-art facilities, beyond the dreams of the old jail’s cons who populate Crosbie’s book, incarceration and loss of freedom must still be the frustrations that fuel the fire of insurrection.

Peterhead Porridge in many ways lifts the lid on the coping strategies developed by prisoners for whom release seems a far-off fantasy and whose biggest enemies are boredom and apathy.

Content to keep his head down and do his time with little fuss and only occasional ducking and diving, Crosbie cannot hide his admiration for those who use humour, very often of the cruellest kind, to relieve the drudgery and make even just a few minutes less mind-numbing.

So, we’re treated to a litany of background anecdotes on nicknames for fellow cons and their enemies the screws, and a succession of accounts of practical jokes, pranks and little victories against the system, all ways of beating the tedium.

In the hyper-macho world behind bars, one-upmanship is all. To lose face is to invite ridicule and among the best parts of Peterhead Porridge are the droll and amusing accounts of circumstances in which the thinkers hold sway over the boastful and aggressive.

There is cruelty too, but Crosbie has left out anything too harrowing as he learns to cope with his loss of freedom, even becoming a regular petitioner for the rights of his peers.

Even if some of the tales fall into the “you had to be there” (er, no thanks) category, there are belly-laugh moments throughout. The key to survival, in the absence of the key to the front door, seems to be to ensure that no weakness is displayed. The lag who let slip his fear of Peterhead’s fearsome seagulls is a hilarious example of the consequences and the recurring theme of a worthwhile series of tales.

Peterhead Porridge by James Crosbie
Black & White Publishing
£7.99

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The Silver Lynx Sporadical PR

Aberdeen City, Featured, Information 3 Responses »

Jun 132014

A new Aberdeen based literary journal has begun the process for ‘proving the existence of contemporary culture in Scotland north of Edinburgh – and refining it’. With thanks to Andrew J Douglas.

The Silver Lynx Sporadical, ‘a literary journal on an enigmatic publication schedule’, has launched an online campaign to spread awareness and has already started reviewing submissions for their debut print issue.

Intended as a throwback to when print was the foremost method of storytelling, The Silver Lynx was established by two friends who found themselves tired of constantly furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand the lack of original literature being read in Aberdeen by people who live in Aberdeen.

The Editors-in-Collective, Andrew J. Douglas and Christopher W. Bradley, may not have been born in our fair granite city, but they say the fact they have stuck the place out, living on the ‘breadcrumb’ line, is a reflection of a magic energy found here which is lacking in other cities.

Andrew said:

“We both moved to Aberdeen for Uni.

“I have an immigrant’s love for the place because it has afforded me with opportunities I found severely lacking in Glasgow.

“Glasgow and Edinburgh are seen as the bedrock of Scottish culture but who gives a shit? Aberdeen has always been a town of note throughout the world for its history but in terms of a city it has only really started to grow into itself since the oil was found.

“There are subcultures and lifestyles being lived here that no one knows about because traditional media in the city either ignores it or fails in its editorial responsibilities by reporting from a loaded point of view.

“The Sporadical is primarily a literary journal, but we have bigger plans on various back burners to turn it into a key weapon in the battle for the North-East’s heart, soul, voice and identity.”

The key players in The Silver Lynx certainly have the right kind of credentials for starting this kind if venture.

Editor-in-Collective Christopher W. Bradley is an English literature graduate whose prose style is heavily influenced by the Icelandic sagas (specifically Njal’s), and he harbours delusions of being:

” the world’s last skald with a Bukowskian twist”

Editor-in-Collective Andrew J. Douglas is a journalist and currently lead reporter at the Deeside Piper but writes fiction because he ‘can’t not’.

In-House Artist Ezra Fraserburg says his qualifications are being:

“gay, depressed and having access to sharpies.”

What kind of thing are they looking for?

Andrew:

“We don’t want anyone to be put off from submitting… except idiots writing thinly veiled porn and calling it chic lit, westerns, romance or fantasy.

We want to read about living here, being from here, moving here, that penny you found on George Street that changed your life, that abandoned building in Ferryhill, that night in Torry, that day in Duthie park… We just want to read anything that anyone who thinks they can write has written.

This is a place of struggle and opposing ideas. It is a breeding ground for creativity.”

Christopher:

“Everything Andy said, but I’ll add: if you’re not from the North-East nor writing about the North-East, still submit. We still want to read what you’ve got to write (assuming its excellent). Sure, The Beast sleeps in the granite city, and a large portion of the stories will be relating to Aberdeen, but the city’s just the conduit.

So long as it’s in English and we think it’s brilliant, it’ll probably go in.

“I see The Lynx as a significant turning point for the city, and if we get it right, a significant turning point for literature. Aberdeen is the frontier town of consumer-capitalism… black gold in the sea and what should be a cultural hub from all the nations it attracts people from for their share of it, but its not… yet.”

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City Bookshop To Host Unique Event – Tues 3 June

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Jun 012014

The Bookshop Band were formed in their local bookshop – Mr Bs Emporium of Reading Delights, Bath.

With thanks to Eoin Smith.

An evening of literary entertainment is set to take place in a popular Aberdeen bookshop on June 3, blending writing with world-class music and magic.
Bath musicians The Bookshop Band will headline the event at Waterstones on Union Bridge, which will also feature a reading from acclaimed author Alan Spence and a performance by local magician Eoin Smith.

Playing original songs inspired by the books they have read, The Bookshop Band play their unique brand of acoustic folk in bookshops around the UK and internationally.

Formed in their local bookshop – Mr Bs Emporium of Reading Delights – their repertoire now includes almost 100 songs inspired by an incredibly diverse range of books – from Booker Prize nominee Ruth Ozeki to Ian Rankin’s Rebus.

Alan Spence, whose latest novel Night Boat was published in 2013, has strong ties with Aberdeen as Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen. Also a prolific writer of poetry and short stories, he has become one of Scotland’s most respected writers since the publication of his first collection, Its Colours They Are Fine, in 1977.

Over the past three years, magician Eoin Smith has become a regular face at variety and comedy nights in and around Aberdeen. Blending humour with jaw-dropping illusions, he is guaranteed to leave the audience spellbound and will also compere the show.

Eoin said:

“I studied English Literature at university, so performing at an event like this is a dream come true. I have a lot of time and respect for The Bookshop Band and Alan Spence, so to be appearing alongside them is sure to be a fantastic experience.

“I hope book lovers around Aberdeen jump on the opportunity to attend such an unusual show, and hope that music and magic fans will also come down to check out what promises to be a really unique evening.”

For more information, please visit www.facebook.com/autorockaberdeen

The Bookshop Band | Alan Spence | Eoin Smith
Waterstones, Union Bridge, Aberdeen
Tues 3 June 2014
Doors open 7pm

Tickets £8 – available in store and at www.wegottickets.com/autorock

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Dickens: Prestigious International Conference Coming To Aberdeen

Aberdeen City, Articles No Responses »

Apr 112014

With thanks to David Innes.

Aberdeen has been selected to host the 2016 conference of the international Dickens Fellowship.

Held last year in France and scheduled for Chicago in July of this year, this annual five day celebration of the life and work of Charles Dickens will be held in Aberdeen in July 2016.

Dr Paul Schlicke, a leading Dickens scholar and retired senior lecturer in English at Aberdeen University, formally presented the bid from the Granite City at a meeting of the Council of the Fellowship in London.

Charles Dickens (1812-70) came to Aberdeen on two occasions, in 1858 and 1866, when he gave public readings in what were then the County Rooms (now the Music Hall), and in 1849 he declined an invitation to stand as rector of Marischal College.

The Dickens Fellowship, founded in 1902, is the biggest fan club of a dead author in the world and has branches all over the world. Aberdeen’s group, started up in 2012, the bicentenary of Dickens’s birth, and affiliated with the international organisation this past autumn. It is not only one of the newest branches but also the only one in all of Scotland.

In the early days of the Fellowship’s existence Edinburgh hosted a branch, but it folded some fifty years ago. The international Conference has been held in Scotland only twice before, in 1929 and 1994, both times in Edinburgh. The decision to come to Aberdeen is therefore a tribute to the dynamism of the Aberdeen Dickensians and recognition of the city’s commercial and cultural importance.

A civic reception will greet delegates, and the conference will be a showcase for all the attractions of Aberdeen and the North-east of Scotland generally. It will be an opportunity to show off the city’s museums and art gallery and to provide excursions to regional castles and distilleries, to the Lewis Grassic Gibbon Centre at Arbuthnott, and to Hospitalfield House, the arts centre in Arbroath, at which a cache of Dickens’s letters has recently been discovered.

The University of Aberdeen will have a central role to play, providing accommodation, dining, and lecture and seminar facilities. An exhibition is planned in the magnificent new Sir Duncan Rice library, which holds one of the richest collections of Dickens materials in the world .

Renowned Dickens actors Simon Callow and Miriam Margolyes hope to perform at Aberdeen’s conference. The broadcaster, Aberdeen’s own James Naughtie, has agreed to speak at the conference banquet.

For more information about the conference including enquires regarding sponsorship, participation and membership of the Aberdeen branch of the Dickens Fellowship, see the website https://sites.google.com/site/aberdeendickensfellowship/ or contact Dr Paul Schlicke at p.schlicke@abdn.ac.uk, or tel 07864945213 (moble) or 01467643337.

The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.

Book Review: Fishermen, Randies and Fraudsters

Information, Opinion No Responses »

Mar 282014

Aberdeen and its hinterland in the 19th century, from the research published in Fishermen, Randies and Fraudsters, had its fair share of criminals hell-bent on pursuing their career of choice no matter the misery or inconvenience caused and generally undeterred by the sanctions likely to be applied if caught. Review by David Innes

Burglars, pickpockets, drunkards, whores and murderers all feature as Archibald paints a picture of urban and rural lawlessness and the increasingly difficult task faced by the authorities in attempting to keep some sort of order with so few resources and tight budgets, 200 years before central police forces, remote control rooms and controversy over corroboration.

These were the days before highly-organised law enforcement, sophisticated communication technology, forensics and general respect for those attempting to keep order, yet some of the crime solutions Archibald features show ingenuity, bravery and doggedness.

There are also examples of enforcement officers’ stupidity and occasional willingness to partake of petty crime themselves.

Nothing changes, it seems.

Archibald even includes an interesting civil case concerning the whaling industry and ownership of a whale wounded by one ship but finally pursued to the kill by another, a tale that exposes the hardship and brutality of this profession as well as the colossal rewards at stake.

Fishermen, Randies and Fraudsters gives a well-researched overview of those far-off times, the individuals concerned and the increasingly-difficult job of detection of miscreants which led, almost inevitably, to the establishment of modern, organised police forces. Whilst it is informative and insightful, the narrative might have been presented in a more lively way, but that is a minor criticism of a worthy addition to NE history.

Fishermen, Randies and Fraudsters

Malcolm Archibald (Black & White Publishing)
ISBN10: 1 84502 744 2 ISBN13: 978 1 84502 744 5
256 pp
£9.99

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