ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
KAREN TWEED is perhaps best known as a top-drawer accordionist — take a listen to her on YouTube if you’re not familiar with her work — whose technical brilliance extracts a lyricism and layered tonalities, often crossing over into the realm of classical music rarely associated with the instrument.
But there’s a lesser-known string to Tweed’s bow. Her passion for sketching has its roots in the art education she received in the 1980s at Leeds School of Arts.
After a period of island-hopping, Tweed settled permanently on Orkney in 2018, the year her father passed away. He was her mentor and she found solace in nature and observing its ephemeral manifestations: “Nature in Orkney is also a powerful healer,” she says.
New releases from Kennedy Administration, Melanie Pain, and Afton Wolfe
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play
ANGUS REID recommends a visit to an outstanding gathering of national and international folk musicians in the northern archipelago



