Jon Gower If the American writer Henry David Thoreau learned about his place in the order of things by living on the edge of Walden Pond then Jack Smylie Wild did so by quietly splashing along the edges of the Teifi, striking his hammock among riparian trees to sleep under […]
Jon Gower This account of four months spent walking from Wales, via Somerset, Devon and Cornwall to Brittany (and via ferry, of course) and then back again is an amiable account of a gentle, life-affirming ramble, full of prayer, history and reminders of the constant kindness of strangers. With a […]
Dawn Thomson I let us into my back garden, there was no-one home. ‘Where’s the pool?’ Jane asked. ‘Not built yet.’ I replied. Tina, who rarely said anything, looked on silently. Her face was blank. ‘It won’t take long. We just need to dig a hole and fill it up.’ […]
Kate Cleaver Vernon House Insane Asylum September 1876 “Stay,” the nurse says. I sit but why should I stay? What reason…? I feel my eyes fixing again. The carpet has such patterns that I can see. So many colours. Needs cleaning. The housekeeper is loud. Should be cleaned. We could […]
Wendy Holborow They are watching you, Theodore Wainwright the 3rd. They can see the love and anticipation in your eyes and in your demeanour, as you turn your smart new car, Jaguar, black and sleek, into the driveway through the security gates of your mansion; what need will you have […]
Jon Gower The story of how a boy from a poor family in the Ceredigion village of Cwmsychbant became one of Wales’ most eminent scientists literally spans the world, taking in Moscow to the east and California to the west as it traces the life of a gifted man. A […]
Elaine Canning Dolores Martínez had lived all her life in Madrid, though she hadn’t always lived on Calle Cervantes. That privilege came when she met and fell in love with a shy, handsome banker, Alfonso Sánchez. Alfonso began as a lowly employee at Madrid’s central branch of Santander, working assiduously […]
Matthew G. Rees Story-writer and novelist Rhys Davies was at the forefront of the remarkable wave of Welsh writing in English that had its roots in a geographically small area of industrial South Wales – notably the Rhondda Valley and its environs – in the last century. Fellow writers in […]
Jon Gower The time frame of the metal-mining endeavours chronicled in this beautifully-produced book reach way, way back into prehistory. Around 2000 BC the copper mine at Ross Island in Ireland ran out of metal which provoked a widespread hunt for new sources. As a consequence therefore, in the […]
Jon Gower The heroine of Gaby Koppel’s debut book is Elizabeth, who works on a Crimewatch style programme for which she does the spade work and sorts out filmed reconstructions to jog the audience’s recall. She’s on the verge of a big break, her own film to make but everything […]
