http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-and-poetry/reviewsBook Reviews | Herald ScotlandenCopyright 2012 Herald & Times Group all rights reservedSat, 26 May 2012 16:30:03 PDTCopyright 2012 Herald & Times Group all rights reservednoBook Reviews | Herald Scotlandhttp://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-red-menace.17600483http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-red-menace.17600483The Scottish football fan is condemned to be force-fed a diet rich in irony, heavy with regret.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/diluted-brew-suggests-a-yearning-for-popular-appeal.17665915http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/diluted-brew-suggests-a-yearning-for-popular-appeal.17665915There is no shoddier sight than a salivating Scottish reviewer honing his sword to thread-cutting sharpness before metaphorically slicing the head off a successful Scottish writer in a gleeful yet squalid example of tall poppy syndrome.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/ballgown-blitz.17547465http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/ballgown-blitz.17547465Sitting on my parents' red embroidered couch, aged about 10, I fell in love with ballgowns.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/flight-of-fancy.17547373http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/flight-of-fancy.17547373Mawer's stock has been slowly rising over the years since being longlisted for the Booker with Mendel's Dwarf – in 2009, he reached the shortlist with The Glass Room.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/paperback-reviews.17547363http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/paperback-reviews.17547363The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (Penguin, £9.99)http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/a-deep-retreat.17547375http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/a-deep-retreat.17547375What is reality?http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/trouble-on-the-streets-and-in-the-home.17547365http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/trouble-on-the-streets-and-in-the-home.17547365There's unrest in Greece.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/the-painful-truth.17536486http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/the-painful-truth.17536486The polar twin of reality is dreams, and in this collection of 15 short stories, Jackie Kay rubs one against the other, as if to test their limits.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/an-extraordinary-evocation-of-the-past.17549082http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/an-extraordinary-evocation-of-the-past.17549082Long before Mary, Queen of Scots, had her head chopped off, Anne Boleyn had the misfortune to lose hers.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/two-become-one-in-compelling-fashion.17518738http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/two-become-one-in-compelling-fashion.17518738Many, if not most, authors struggle with the crucial task of creating a memorable and compelling central character.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/the-lost-world-of-fruit-and-vegetables.17451018http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/the-lost-world-of-fruit-and-vegetables.17451018Thank ill-considered EU bureaucracy: it was the trigger for this awesome book.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/murder-mystery.17451014http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/murder-mystery.17451014THERE is a feeling, as you first delve into Brighton Belle, that you are arriving late to a party.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/.1336269832http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/.1336269832Vladimir Putin's eyes: what do they reveal or conceal?http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/a-beautifully-played-game-of-football-and-fate.17356070http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/a-beautifully-played-game-of-football-and-fate.17356070It is, perhaps, best to paint Ryan Giggs by numbers.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/fasten-your-seatbelts.17450980http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/fasten-your-seatbelts.17450980Those who say reading fiction is a waste of time should try this novel.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/when-the-devil-is-in-the-details.17451021http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/when-the-devil-is-in-the-details.17451021Despite the efforts of the cranks and the Holocaust deniers, the tragedies and atrocities suffered by Europe's Jews during the Second World War are now secure in the historical record.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts.17476170http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts.17476170Why exactly it is that short story collections sell so poorly compared to novels is something many lovers of fiction find hard to fully understand – and that's a salient point when dealing with a book like this one, a group of stories so thematically united that they give the impression of being conceived, much like a novel, as a single entity.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/still-lifes.17356338http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/still-lifes.17356338Back at the fag end of the 1980s, the cartoonist Nick Abadzis started a regular comic strip called Hugo Tate in a new magazine.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/.1335665018http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/.1335665018The Beauty in the Beast by Hugh Warwick,  Simon & Schuster  £14.99  Reviewed by Alastair Mabbotthttp://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/.1336490385http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/.1336490385As Consciousness Is Harnessed To Flesh: Diaries 1964-1980  Susan Sontag  edited by David Rieff Hamish Hamilton, £18.99  Reviewed by Lesley McDowellhttp://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/strangers-in-their-own-land.17337869http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/strangers-in-their-own-land.17337869Home for veteran soldier Frank Money is Lotus, a small town in Georgia he couldn't wait to escape.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/bleak-beauty.17284004http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/bleak-beauty.17284004This is one of the finest pieces of debut fiction I've encountered in the last few years, and with it DW Wilson takes his place with other North American writers such as David Vann and Daniel Woodrell in eking out savage grace and empathy through muscular prose and the desperate circumstances of his characters.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/an-ode-to-family.17243545http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/an-ode-to-family.17243545The past is a pitfall, but its dangers are resolutely undramatic and usually a function of how stories are told.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/puppy-love-and-animal-magic.17317708http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/puppy-love-and-animal-magic.17317708In recent decades there have been some celebrated author-illustrator partnerships in the world of children's picture books: Allan and Janet Ahlberg, Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, to name but three.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/how-an-author-contemplated-murder-after-his-sons-were-snatched.17242766http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/how-an-author-contemplated-murder-after-his-sons-were-snatched.17242766It is the June of 2000, and the sun shines on Edinburgh.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/splitting-seconds.17242888http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/splitting-seconds.17242888It's nice when books are set in a neighbourhood you recognise.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/why-did-hilda-die.17272559http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/why-did-hilda-die.17272559Hilda Murrell was brutally murdered in 1984 in circumstances that have never been satisfactorily explained.http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/another-step-towards-a-wider-field-of-vision.17275789http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/reviews/another-step-towards-a-wider-field-of-vision.17275789In his heartfelt paper, The Teaching Of Scottish History In The Scottish Universities, published in 1973, Bruce Lenman commented that, if it featured at all in Scotland's school curriculum, the country's history was generally taught in a "deadly fashion".nonadult