"Jarrow-born Tom Kelly now lives happily further up the Tyne at Blaydon. This is his fifth collection and fourth published by Red Squirrel Press. In History Talks he looks at past and present in the North East, from William Jobling, the last man gibbeted in the north; Mary Ann Cotton, the nineteenth century murderer; his late father; Geordie, an Everyman, who first appeared in Dreamers in a Cold Climate, and others trying to make sense of their lives today. Once again 'Kelly is preoccupied with place and loss'."
Poetry Book Society Bulletin

"The voice is absolutely convincing, and very appealingly managed in print - something very difficult to do with our gruff yet musical gift of self-expression - half proud, half uneasy about the effect it can make - often astonishingly memorable."
James Kirkup

Tom Kelly's previous poetry collections from Red Squirrel Press were Dreamers in a Cold Climate, Love-Lines and Somewhere in Heaven. Red Squirrel also published the text of his play Nothing Like the Wooden Horse, which was first produced by the Customs House, South Shields, in March 2009.