Showing 21 - 30 of 37
An enduring spirit
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 18/01/2016
» With the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the world entered the atomic age. More devastating hydrogen bombs were tested, weapons of mass destruction indeed. The US and USSR rattled theirs at each other over the next 44 years, until the Soviets called it a day and the Cold War was over.
A lawyer's dream
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 27/07/2015
» The person many historians and authors of historical fiction find most fascinating to write about is England's 16th-century monarch Henry VIII. His hope for a male heir led him to have six wives, execute two of them and change the religion of the country.
Opposites attract
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 27/04/2015
» Books are pumped out by publishing houses because tens of thousands of men and women hope to gain fame and fortune. Over the centuries other paths — discovering new lands, coming up with inventions — have been all but closed off.
Right vs Justice
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 09/02/2015
» It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks of the North Yorkshire Police is as well known in the UK in this day and age as London private detective Sherlock Holmes was a century ago. Less so in the US with its plethora of shamuses. But crime thriller fans the world over rate him as one of the best.
Worth waiting for
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 15/12/2014
» Historical fiction authors are of two kinds — those emphasising the history and using their imagination to fill in the gaps their research draws a blank on, and those making up the story and throwing in a few facts. Both try to make what they write interesting.
Yes? No? Maybe?
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 15/09/2014
» We know what history and historical fiction is, but pseudo-history? It is fiction made to seem fact. Untrue, yet commonly believed. The origins of religions is an example, founded by an interplay between God and humans. Another is how countries came to be, such as Romulus and Remus raised by wolves. Brits are pretty sure that Robin Hood was a literary creation, but tend to accept King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
Minority of one
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 28/04/2014
» I don’t know if it is so in real life, but literary sleuths — male and female — abound. Cops and private eyes, doctors and lawyers, government, military, old biddies, archaeologists. Thriller writers base their stories on actual and imaginary crimes. In either case, readers want them to be interesting.
Mariner Murder Inc
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 31/03/2014
» Not the least difference between historians and well-researched historical novelists is that a historian feels obligated to dot every “i” and cross every “t”.
Depressing psychological thriller
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 10/02/2014
» Over Christmas, this reviewer received a number of books of a kind-boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. And conversely girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy. In both, they end up married and live happily ever after, which is the formula for literary love stories apart from Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet in which the lovers commit suicide.
Why World War I?
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 16/09/2013
» This reviewer can't reiterate often enough that a history book isn't a historical novel. There's no curling up in a chair or lying in bed reading a chapter of a tome penned by a historian on a subject of his choice. To be sure, some historians have a more agreeable style than others, but they are by and large dry.