As there has been some negative publicity about Amazon reviews in the press recently (people puffing their own work etc) I guess someone alighting on this thread with little or no acquaintance with other boards might characterise us as a Mutual Admiration Society.Such suspicions will I hope be quickly corrected by a browse through the first dozen threads on TDE and Non-Met.
Here (with apologies for a header that may seem more appropriate to a fizzy drink)is my recent review of Kate Benedict's collection 'Here from away'.
'Energising.
Accessible, versatile, accomplished, compassionate, yes. And in parts very, very funny. Benedict's 'Rienelle' was in itself well worth the purchase price of the volume to this mildly cynical reader:
No meaning, no import, no point, no wit.
I speak of nothing, not even weather.
I've nothing to say and I'm saying it.
Her elegy for the Iranian conjoined twins was vivid and touching without the least hint of false semtimentality.
The vignettes of life in a New York apartment building illuminate corners unfamiliar to those of us who know her city mainly through TV, film or popular fiction.
If, however, I was asked for one word to apply to the collection it would be 'energising'. Which is why I'm about to order a copy as a present for a good friend.'
Margaret.
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