JOHN AUBREY – REMEMBRANCER, ROMANTIC AND FORWARD-THINKER John Aubrey, My Own Life Ruth Scurr, London: Chatto & Windus, 2015, hb., 518pp, £25 Just as English painting is renowned for portraiture, so English letters have been illuminated by some of the greatest biographers ever to burnish world literature. After Boswell, the best-known is John Aubrey (1626-1697),… Continue reading
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Testing for humanity – The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams
TESTING FOR HUMANITY The Plague Dogs (book 1977, film 1982) I came across by chance recently a DVD of The Plague Dogs, a 1982 animation of Richard Adams’ bestselling 1977 novel. I was catapulted immediately back to childhood, when I had read the book shortly after publication, with a sense of distress and anger I… Continue reading
Sea Changes part-serialised – Part 4
Connor Post continues with its extracts from Sea Changes – http://connorpost.com/exclusive/derek-turner-sea-changes-4.html
My Spiked review of Dublin Seven, Frankie Gaffney’s novel of inner-city drug-dealing
My Spiked review of Frankie Gaffney’s gritty novel Dublin Seven is now online here: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/dublin-seven-nasty-brutish-and-brilliant/19053#.WEHyhXecZok
Sea Changes part-serialized – Part 3
Connor Post‘s part-serialization of Sea Changes continues with Chapter 3, here: http://connorpost.com/exclusive/derek-turner-sea-changes-3.html
Sea Changes part-serialized – Part 2
Connor Post is now carrying Chapter 2 of Sea Changes here: http://connorpost.com/exclusive/derek-turner-sea-changes-2.html
Sea Changes part-serialized – Part 1
Connor Post is serializing extracts from Sea Changes. Part 1 (and a brief introduction) may be found here: http://connorpost.com/exclusive/derek-turner-sea-changes-1.html
Wayne Allensworth reviews A Modern Journey for Chronicles
Regular Chronicles writer (and soon-to be novelist) Wayne Allensworth reviews A Modern Journey in that journal’s September issue – In his latest book, Derek Turner, author of Sea Changes and Displacement, takes his readers on a seriocomic journey with a latter-day Holy Fool. Along the way, Turner takes aim at the insanity of political correctness,… Continue reading
Me on Dr. Johnson in the Hebrides
Latest article for Chronicles – “An Englishman in his Near Abroad” The August issue of Chronicles has my article on Samuel Johnson’s celebrated trip to the Hebrides – seven pages of Pictish/Celtic legend, Culdees, Vikings, golden eagles, sea-storms, and of course the great man at his most relaxed and clubbable. Not available on line, so you will need… Continue reading
A Modern Journey reviewed by the Connor Post
James Connor has penned a generous and thoughtful review of my Irish novel A Modern Journey. An extract: “Turner is an outstanding wordsmith. The quality of his writing is a pleasure. Maybe he could have dialed back some of the more preposterous pronouncements of Ambrose, but only because they slacken the pace. Then again, I have a… Continue reading