Robert Irwin: The Dabbling Dervish
Robert Irwin is an English writer who has written six novels and numerous studies of different aspects of Islamic culture. He is also the Middle Eastern editor of the Times Literar
Review: Drawings from the Gulag by Danzig Baldaev
Drawings from the Gulag begins unexpectedly, with a headshot of a proud homo-sovieticus from one of the USSR’s eastern minorities. Wearing thick soviet spectacles and a soviet su
Gorbushka- Moscow’s One Stop Shop For Firearms And Pirate CDs
My favourite record shop was not a shop, but a once illegal open-air market in Moscow, Russia that went by the name ‘Gorbushka’. Legend has it that in the early ’90s you
Paradise Has Relocated
(Foreword to the book and gallery show by photographer Sandy Carson) I well remember the media build-up to the assault from Hurricane Ike that wiped out so much of Galveston, Texas
Authors, Social Media and the Allure of Magical Thinking
So anyway, I’ve got a great idea. Times are hard for publishers, therefore publicists should write books. No, really: they know what’s hot better than anyone. So they should wr
LONE STAR LUNCH: In Search of William S. Burroughs’ Pea Field
I’d been interested in Edinburg, Texas (they dropped the ‘h’ in the 1930s) ever since I’d bought a souvenir mug in a junk shop that read: Edinburg: Gateway to the Future. I
I Was A True Crime Addict
A few years ago I took a break from my excessively wholesome diet of quality literature to go grazing in the world of trash. I read celebrity biographies, airport thrillers, detect
A Short Tour of the Juarez- El Paso Border
I met Sgt. Ron Martin of the El Paso police department early in the morning, and was about to climb into his car when I found my way blocked by an assault rifle, propped up against
Juarez: City of Fear
“We’re not going to die, are we Dan?” asked my friend Joe, a CBS radio reporter, shortly before we crossed from El Paso into Juarez, Mexico, murder capital of the wor
Criminal Incidences
1 Elgin officer sentenced for possession of child pornography Attorney General Greg Abbott’s campaign against sex offenders and online sex predators in Texas claimed another