Brian Hannan, local author and manager of Abbey Books in Paisley, reviews Glasgow, The Clyde and Slavery by D. Pettigrew Britain was officially involved in the slave trade for 170 years, from Charles II granting a charter in 1663 until the Slave Abolition Act of 1833. It’s estimated that during that period British ships...
Read MoreBrian Hannan from Abbey Books in Paisley takes a look at a new crime novel, The Thief Takers by Patrick Pringle Notions of freedom proved an almost insuperable barrier to Britain having a competent police force for hundreds of years. In Europe, the land-based armies required to be maintained in case of war with a...
Read MoreBrian Hannan from Abbey Books in Paisley takes a look at a new crime novel, A Thief’s Justice by Douglas Skelton Every now and then a crime novel hits the bulls-eye. Until now Glasgow writer Douglas Skelton has been better known for non-fiction and his contemporary crime series featuring journalist Rebecca Connolly. That’s going to...
Read MoreAhead of the Abbey Books Summer Book Festival, organiser Brian Hannan interviews historical crime novelist Steven Veerapen What attracted you to the period of Henry VIII – the setting for Of Judgement Fallen? I’ve loved reading about this period since childhood – from Horrible Histories to the old 70s drama series on Henry and his...
Read MoreBrian Hannan, local author and manager of Abbey Books in Paisley, reviews 16 Incle Street by Jeff Holmes Few Paisley addresses are as notorious as 16 Incle Street. For it was there in 1924 that Joe Gallacher. Aged 29, slashed his wife’s throat with a razor. Ordinarily, he would have been an automatic candidate...
Read MoreBrian Hannan from Abbey Books in Paisley takes a look at a new book, The Renfrewshire Victoria Crosses by Graham Fulton Paisley poet Graham Fulton has commemorated the actions of the five Paisley men awarded the country’s highest wartime honour – the Victoria Cross – in battles from the Crimean War to World Two. These...
Read MoreBrian Hannan from Abbey Books in Paisley reviews another fantastic book, The Earth Is Weeping by Peter Cozzens This award-winning history of the Indian Wars in America is so even-handed you won’t find a single mention of the word “genocide”. That’s about the only flaw in this magnificent history of a war that lasted nearly...
Read MoreBrian Hannan from Abbey Books in Paisley reviews The Waste Land, A Biography of a Poem by Matthew Hollis Except for the late burst of popularity afforded W.H. Auden’s Stop the Clocks after inclusion in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, published in 1922, would have reigned supreme as...
Read MoreBrian Hannan talks us through what could be the start of a book revolution, introducing the Abbey Books Readers Club… Coming up with something quite new at a second-hand bookshop sounds like a contradiction in terms. But we may just have stumbled on something that could revolutionise the world of books. As you might imagine...
Read MoreBrian Hannan, local author and manager at Abbey Books in Paisley reviews The Devil Stone by Caro Ramsay. After 13 novels headed by the crime-busting team of Anderson and Costello, Paisley novelist Caro Ramsay has abandoned her usual Glasgow beat and headed up the west coast and surpassed herself with the debut of DCI...
Read More