Category Archives: Books

Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

You can see it all, and yet still be unaware of the whole story that unfolds before your eyes. Seeing is believing, so they say, and yet what our eyes are able to visualise is barely enough to grasp the enormity of what the future is offering.

Today we are urged to take photographs of everything, to capture the moment, and this lends itself to two very different attitudes, one is the verification of the story, the proof framed that adds definition to the verbal narration, the other is the line taken by some that the photographer is merely seeking attention, demonstrating their life, be it humble, humdrum or beige, as one as an exciting monologue that deserves the full attention of likes, loves and shocked memes.

Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool. Book Review. full post

(525 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

Derek Shelmerdine, Rock ‘n’ Roll Unravelled: From Its Roots To-Mid-1970s Punk. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There was a time when the writer was revered, placed upon a pedestal, and given the respect they deserve, and this was especially true of those who went beyond the realms of imagination and pain staking approach to research to produce a tome of information that was designed, in the words of Lord Reith to educate, inform, and entertain.

In a world made arguably simpler, but less brain friendly, by the internet, facts have lost their charm, they have lost their place in a society obsessed by the speed of a download and the uncared-for physicality of both the art and the application of the labour that went into it.

Derek Shelmerdine, Rock ‘n’ Roll Unravelled: From Its Roots To-Mid-1970s Punk. Book Review. full post

(389 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Alex Kingston, The Ruby’s Curse. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Humanity, it seems, is fascinated to learn of an ancient curse that is placed upon an object or even upon a person, it adds mystery, mystique, it allows vast swathes of the populace to insist upon regulations, and for others it acknowledges that there is something beyond our recognition that needs to be explored, to be investigated; and in that search for answers, for the logical explanation behind the supposed spell, we reveal a truth about the nature of our species.

Alex Kingston, The Ruby’s Curse. Book Review. full post

(543 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Doctor Who. The Witchfinders. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A reader should never judge a book by its cover, but it is possible to assess and value a book by the film or television show it has been adapted from.

Normally it is the other way round when it comes to the argument between how television and literature is consumed; the sense of “The film is not as the book” is always to be heard when comparisons are drawn between the two physical interpretations of the author’s imagination.

Doctor Who. The Witchfinders. Book Review. full post

(495 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Nia Shea: These Are The Words I Shout At The Moon. Poetry Collection Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

We will come to regret the day when we deny the individual the freedom to feel.

We have become consumed by the idea that to be able to make our position clear must mean we are seeking confrontation, and perhaps in a way we have, for in a world that finds ever more ingenious ways to make us believe we are being heard, only to find out that we have been ignored, or worse, offered platitudes in the form of verbal bromide, being unable to make peace through the art of flowing anger is to stunt the growth of anyone with a soul, anyone with passion.

Nia Shea: These Are The Words I Shout At The Moon. Poetry Collection Review. full post

(503 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Luke Scott: Two Feet In The Sand. Poetry Collection Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The impression we make in other people’s lives can be seen as being created by Two feet In The Sand, some actions deeper than others, some easily washed away by time and tide, the sea of indifference or the ocean of positive affirmation all leaving their traces in one way or another; and yet it is the impact we have on our own lives that can leave a feeling like concrete driven into the beach of perception, that can weigh us down, allow us to dig to depths we had not thought capable…if only we could find the beauty in the experience, and feel the sand between our toes, and not sink further.

Luke Scott: Two Feet In The Sand. Poetry Collection Review. full post

(446 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Kit Derrick, The Raven Sound. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

We mistake the perception of Time travel to believe that is us that is being placed in a different era, whether our own or of future’s past and present, we believe that the unlikely happening is for our benefit and not for what is taking place. Time travel exists, it is though like evolution, we cannot fathom it properly because we insist that we cannot witness it happening, we cannot see it with our own eyes.

Kit Derrick, The Raven Sound. Book Review. full post

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Pierre Christin And Sebastian Verdier, Orwell. Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood” …

When you leave the world with an era, a defining state of art that carries your name, then you have stepped into history, not as a memory that will fade, but with the assurance that like Kings and Queens of old, your name will persist for all time.

Pierre Christin And Sebastian Verdier, Orwell. Graphic Novel Review. full post

(616 words, estimated 2:28 mins reading time)

D E McCluskey & Tony Bolland. In The Mood…For Murder. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The point, so many armchair detectives will sagely advise, is that the act of murder in literature is not followed closely because the reader wants to feel the essence of the criminal mind at work, but to know that the restoration of order is forthcoming, and that justice, be it natural, or in some macabre fashion, will be swift.

D E McCluskey & Tony Bolland. In The Mood…For Murder. Book Review. full post

(419 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Mark Gatiss: Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Arguably Doctor Who is at its best when it steers clear of the stars and takes its rightful place in the Victorian folk horror and the melodrama which accompanies it. After all, the era itself lends itself perfectly to the idea of the supernatural investigation, the race memory of what the destructive pursuit of empire has wrought in the landscape and the name of progress, and the terrors that have been faced by the aspirational working class as lives were pushed to limit, and the soul of humanity forsaken in the grabbing hands of capitalism, and the quest for the new Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.

Mark Gatiss: Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror. Book Review. full post

(494 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)