Some books are comforting diversions from reality. Recently I spotted Jill Mansell’s ‘The One You Really Want’ on my ereader and remembered that I used to enjoy her books sufficiently to have purchased several. Despite this not featuring on my current TBR list, it jumped to the top of my Actually Reading list due to […]
Sometimes you see a book and just know you’re going to love it. That’s how I felt when I spotted ‘Gooseberry’ by Michael Gallagher on Librarything. The fact that I had yet to read either Wilkie Collins’ ‘The Moonstone’, which is the inspiration and touchstone for Gallagher’s novel, or anything previously written by Gallagher himself, […]
Recently I was lucky enough to see Dave Gorman live at my local theatre. His current tour, ‘Dave Gorman gets straight to the point…the PowerPoint’, is a treat for anyone who enjoys chasing down oddities to their logically absurd conclusions, and I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Afterwards he was selling and signing some of his […]
“The Rolling Stones? They won’t last.” I’m pretty sure that the knowing smirk invited by comments like the one above is the only reason I occasionally read historical fiction. ‘Kiss Me Quick’ is set in 1960s Brighton and features mods, rockers, gangsters and a massively corrupt police force, so there’ll be drugs, violence, fighting and […]
Did you know that ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was banned in China in 1931? Apparently Lewis Carroll’s novel was banned because ‘General Ho Chien thought it was offensive to depict animals talking as if they were people’. If you would enjoy reading a book full of similarly amusing information about books and bookshops then look no […]
Espionage, murder, romance and humour; this novel has them all. Considered by many to be the inaugural detective novel, Wilkie Collins’ nineteenth century novel ‘The Moonstone’ is a classic. What’s it about? A precious gem is stolen, a curse follows the thief and three Hindus sacrifice their caste to retrieve it. This brief précis gives […]
And your starter for ten is: who wrote popular 2009 novel ‘One Day’? Did you know the answer? It was, of course, author and screenwriter David Nicholls, who is best-known for his third novel ‘One Day’, which I do own a copy of but haven’t yet got round to reading; ‘Starter for Ten’ is his […]
What would life be like if your brother communicated with you through the wind, the waves, the movement of a fox? What would life be like if he communicated with you despite being dead? Meet 19 year old Matthew Homes. He’ll tell you he doesn’t hear voices. But he does hear his brother. ‘I’ll tell […]
How would you react if you were arrested for murder? Would you be angry? Frightened? Horrified? Or would you reflect on the prevalence of earthquakes in your adopted city? If the latter sounds like you then you might get along very well with Lucy Fly, English-born, Tokyo-based and newly minted murder suspect. What’s it about? […]
Don’t judge this book by its seriously creepy cover. (Seriously. Creepy.) If you did, you might miss out on a treat. What’s it about? 13 year old Harriet is trying hard to grow up. Her reluctant entrance into adolescence is made worse by her parents’ reactions to her long-dead brother: her father has moved away, […]