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A Vital Breath Book Review

The spirit-world around this world of sense Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense A vital breath of more ethereal air. —Haunted Houses, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A With Both Hands Mini-Review Paxton Locke is back, not much older, but hopefully much wiser than

Splitting out literary criticism and book reviews

As I reflect upon what it is I do here at With Both Hands, I’ve decided to make a stronger distinction between criticism and reviews. Writing book criticism is something I love to do, and intend to continue doing, but it can also take a while to find the

Operation Kronstadt Book Review

Harry Ferguson’s Operation Kronstadt [Amazon link] filled in a gap in a time (1919-20) and a place (St. Petersburg) that I had known nearly nothing about. The book starts slow, and then builds and builds up to a genuinely thrilling climax. For events now more than a hundred years

Operation Kronstadt: Coastal Motor Boats

As documented in Operation Kronstadt, The head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, Captain Mansfield Cumming, wanted to use Coastal Motor Boats to rescue a field agent out of Bolshevik-controlled Petrograd in 1919. The CMBs were small and fast, and had the ability to hydroplane and avoid the sub-surface mines

2022 Book Market

I stumbled on some great data on the book market for 2022 on Twitter, so I’m copying it here as it is so important to build up your quantitative sense with reference to handy facts. It is also good to have a reality check on how bestsellers can make

Operation Kronstadt: British Secret Intelligence Service

In the beginning of Operation Kronstadt, Lieutenant ‘Gus’ Agar has a very odd meeting with the head of the British Secret Intelligence service, Captain Mansfield Cumming, a man known simply as ‘C’. …His commanding officer at HMS Osea had ordered him to report to the Admiralty that morning where he

The Death of the Character only Narrative

Twitter user ClericsWearRingmail asked a question about the literary device that Poul Anderson uses at the end of Three Hearts and Three Lions. An interesting question in and of itself, but the purpose here is for me to use that question to reflect on the death of the narrator in