Demob Happy

The fantastic Mr Fox As probably Paul Theroux’s best-known fiction work I’ve long wanted to read ‘Mosquito Coast’, and not just because I am a fan of his grumpy brand of travel writing. A 1980s feature film adaptation – starring Harrison Ford and River Phoenix – left a indelible mark on me, perhaps because, as [...]

[Read more →]

Season of bad will 7/10 I borrowed ‘A Season In The West’ on the recommendation of my mother-in-law [insert predictable joke here], who suggested I might find in it interesting parallels with Rose Tremain’s ‘The Road Home‘ which deals with similar themes. Both books concentrate on the migrant experience of London life, ‘The Road Home’ [...]

[Read more →]

Wildly overrated 4/10 ‘Into the Wild‘ is an apaptation of Jon Krakauer’s bestselling true story about Christopher McCandless, a middle-class graduate who dropped out and hit the road in search of “ultimate freedom” in Alaska. Sean Penn’s treatment of the story is an embarassingly self-righteous and romanticised interpretation that says much more about the director [...]

[Read more →]

On the other hand …. 7/10 The Left Hand of God analyses the socio-political conditions that have led to the religious right’s rise to prominence in the US and the way the Republicans have manipulated a culture of fear to serve the interests of corporate America. Braver still, it tries to envisage an alternative left [...]

[Read more →]