Carrying a Torch - Ted Berrigan

Advantages: Ultimatly life-affirming
Disadvantages: Hard to obtain in England (try the Internet)

...I prefer American poets. British poets are too self-obsessed and parochial. Of all Modern American Poets, Jim Carroll is the most emotionally direct. While some of his early work can be contextually obscure, his heart always comes through. Carroll’s creativity pulled him through protracted Heroin addiction in the 70s. He became an over-night star in New York’s underground poetry scene, buoyed up on praise from contempories Patti Smith and Ted Berrigan and rave reviews from the legendary Jack Kerouac. His unquenchable lust for expression led him to become a luminary of the New York punk scene in the 80s; his song ‘People Who Died’ widely considered a seminal work from that period. This is a man for whom words are more than a living, they are a life. His work combines the raw hunger of the street with an unpretentious spirituality... Read review

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Advantages: Remarkable story! So descriptive an well written.
Disadvantages: Martin Booth will never write another story!

...for newspapers, travel books, biographies and Children’s books. Before taking up his pen he had quite a few different jobs, including a navvy, a clerk, a lorry driver and a teacher. From his birth in Lancashire he was then educated in Hong Kong, before heading off into all those jobs. He started writing in the 60’s, having a number of poetry pamphlets published for various magazines. Booth kept on writing and living life to the full until the final weeks of his illness stopped him ~ he leaves a wife (Helen Barber), a son, a daughter and a lot of interesting books! ~~~THE PLOT. PoW is the story of Ted Foley ~ a cabin boy who lies about his age to join the Navy in The First World War. The story begins, when Ted is 14 years old and the year is 1914. Ted’s duties aboard the HMS Nomad are to carry ammunition to the ship’s guns and the carry out any... Read review

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Advantages: Great characterisation and writing
Disadvantages: Style may not be to everyone's taste

..."Absolutely," says Ted Mundy, often, using that typically middle-class phrase of the mid 20th century. But only a part of his background - he was educated at an English public school - conforms to this stereotype. The rest of him has been formed by a wide variety of environments and influences which combine to make him a perfect spy. Readers of John Le Carré will recognise that last phrase, the title of one of his previous novels. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War was declared over, many book reviewers lamented that this also spelled the end of the spy story. Not so. It is alive, well and thriving in the master's hands; partly because Le Carré has always written novels which happen to be about spies, rather than spy stories, and partly because, well, there are always new enemies against whom the dark arts of espionage can... Read review

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