Book reviews

NEWCASTLE BETWEEN THE WARS: BYRON DAWSON’S TYNESIDE by Marshall Hall. Published by Tyne Bridge Publishing, PO Box 88, Newcastle NE99 1DX. £7.99. Softback

ART historian Marshall Hall first came across the illustrations of Byron Dawson when he was a pupil of the artist. Sadly, all were lost when the artist’s studio was cleared following his death in 1968. The intricately detailed ...


THE MAKING OF STAN LAUREL: ECHOES OF A BRITISH BOYHOOD, by Danny Lawrence. Published by McFarland (email:info@eurospangroup.com). £29.95. Softback.

ALTHOUGH he was born in Ulverston and his family spent a few years living in Bishop Auckland, Stan Laurel lived for almost 10 years in North Shields, the home town of the author. It was in this town that the soon-to-be-famous ...


PATHWAYS, by Nicholas Rudd-Jones and David Stewart. Published by Guardian Books (www.guardianbooks.co.uk). £20. Hardback.

THESE walks are journeys of exploration along Britain’s historic byways. They range from pilgrim routes of medieval times, smugglers’ trails, the processional routes of Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, to Victorian seafront ...


CHAMELEON, short stories by Beda Higgins. Published by Iron Press (email:ironpress@blueyonder.co.uk). £8. Softback.

A COLLECTION of 12 stories from the Tyneside-based winner of the 2009 Mslexia International Short Story Competition. In the tradition of fairy tales, recurrent themes run through the stories full of heroes and villains. The stories ...


DEVIL’S DROVE, a novel by Erica Yeoman. Published by Room To Write (www.roomtowrite.co.uk). £7.99. Softback.

AS a shy 16-year-old boy in the navy, Gregory Felton suffers a humiliating experience at the hands of a group of women _ an experience which will scar him for life. Many years later, as an ordained minister, Gregory is cast adrift in ...


COMETH THE MAN, by Gordon Taylor. Published by Austin & Macauley (www.austinmacauley.com). £7.99. Softback.

THIS first novel by this Newbiggin-based writer is set in the early 1800s and tells the story of Nathaniel Davidson, the 16-year-old son of an aristocratic Northumberland family, who falls out with his father and sets out to make his ...


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