Winds of Change: Britain in the Early Sixties Peter Hennessy, Penguin, 2020, 602 pages, £12.99 Lord Hennessy’s Winds of Change is the last in a trilogy covering the years 1945 – 1965, during which Britain helped win a war but began to lose an empire, and everything altered. The preceding volumes – Never Again: Britain… Continue reading
Posts Tagged → Chronicles magazine
Dr. Johnson in Scotland – An Englishman in his Near Abroad
DR. JOHNSON IN SCOTLAND – AN ENGLISHMAN IN HIS NEAR ABROAD Samuel Johnson was nearly sixty-four when he made an unexpected journey. One day in 1773, the internationally-renowned lexicographer, essayist, poet, and novelist, who somehow combined being one of the great thinkers of Europe with being a personification of bluff Englishness, suddenly switched his great… Continue reading
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
New review of Displacement, by poet Liam Guitar
The June issue of Chronicles contains a top-notch review of Displacement, by the poet Liam Guitar (whose Anhaga is just out, and highly recommended). Liam says, “Turner’s descriptions of London are one of the highlights…The city becomes a character: old, vibrant, curled along its river, evoked in swift effective sentences creating precise and memorable images. The prose… Continue reading
Highway maintenance – review of The Broken Road by Patrick Leigh Fermor
HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mouth Athos Patrick Leigh Fermor, London: John Murray, 162pp, hb In 2011, Patrick Leigh Fermor became Patrick Leigh Former, and hundreds of thousands of devotees became doubly bereft. The first loss was the man himself, at 96 an antique in his own right, one of… Continue reading
Too quiet flows the Don
TOO QUIET FLOWS THE DON The stone head from the Iron Age glowers out of its glass case as if outraged by the indignity of imprisonment, its relegation from totem to tourist attraction. Not that there are ever many tourists in Doncaster Museum, especially on a unseasonably warm day when the sun-punished town seems full… Continue reading
Early promise – review of Morning Crafts by Tito Perdue
EARLY PROMISE Morning Crafts, Tito Perdue, Arktos, London, 2012, 163 pp Way back in prehistory – 1991, or thereabouts – a promising Alabaman author started to register on readers’ radars, thanks to lambent reviews from Northern litterateurs surprised to discover that there was at least one Southron who could not only write, but write as… Continue reading
Rise of the Dominatrix – review of Margaret Thatcher: Not for Turning by Charles Moore
RISE OF THE DOMINATRIX Margaret Thatcher: Not for Turning Charles Moore, London: Allen Lane, 2013, 859pp When Margaret Thatcher died last April, the obsequies were at times almost drowned by vitriolic voices celebrating her demise. There were howls of joy from old enemies, street parties, and a puerile campaign to make the Wizard of Oz… Continue reading
Borderline personality disorder – a review of The Education of Hector Villa
BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER “Roads fade out before you reach the line, And the signposts disappear” Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Borderland The Education of Hector Villa Chilton Williamson, Jr., Rockford, Illinois: Chronicles Press, 2012, pb. 208 Native New Yorker Chilton Williamson, Jr. has an impressive pedigree as conservative intellectual, as former history editor for St. Martin’s Press,… Continue reading