Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch OK – Let me nail my colours to the mast… I was born and bred in Purley, Surrey, on the edge of London suburbia; yes, that Purley – ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more’. I later studied at Imperial College in Kensington, and I know there and London’s Read More
Category: Authors A
Book Group Report: Half of a Yellow Sun
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Our book group read this month was one of those archetypal earnest stories featuring real events that can generate great discussions. This novel takes place in 1960s Nigeria before and during the Nigerian-Biafran war which started in 1967. It follows the lives of two sisters, their Read More
A renowned children’s author goes mainstream…
The True Tale of the Monster Billy Deanby David Almond David Almond’s first novel, written for older children, was Skellig (1998). It parallels the stories of two children who find and help an ailing creature who may or may not be an angel, with that of the boy’s little brother who is ill in hospital. Read More
The Death of King Arthur vs. Le Morte D’Arthur
The Death of King Arthur by Peter Ackroyd I am a huge fan of all things Arthurian – having always enjoyed books about myths and legends by Roger Lancelyn Green et al as a child, it was seeing the 1981 film Excalibur that turned this interest into a bit of an obsession. I read most of the old Read More
Reading the Canongate Myths – Vol 2
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood Penelope was the wife of Odysseus and cousin of Helen – both were to affect her life profoundly. Although Penelope’s was a happy marriage, when Helen was engaged in all those shenanigans that precipitated the Trojan War, Odysseus abandoned Penelope and rushed to Helen’s aid, and then took twenty years Read More
Starting the Canongate Myths series …
A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong One of my reading resolutions for 2010 is to read the entire Canongate Myths series – re-tellings of age old stories by great authors. While I’m not intending to read them in strict publication order necessarily, (I managed to snaffle a copy of the latest addition Orphans Read More
My Literary Hero
Paul Auster I finished reading his latest book Invisible a week or so ago. It is a great novel and displays many of his favourite tricks and his characteristic verve in the writing. I also re-read his first novel The New York Trilogy – a linked set of metafiction detective novellas, which I found as Read More
A book with mischievious intent, that doesn’t entirely live up to its promise
Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith If you look at all the reviews, you’ll see that this monster mash-up of the beloved novel has totally split opinions of those who have read it. I’ll tell you mine after a bit of explanation. Zombies have been plaguing the English countryside for Read More
Good Clean Spy Fun – with a spot of murder, and a good dose of drugs …
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler When I saw that Penguin were reissuing five of Ambler’s novels in their Modern Classics series, the choice of which to read first was easy – I picked The Mask of Dimitrios. Apart from having been published during the same year as Chandler’s The Big Sleep, this novel Read More
Three from the archives …
Let me introduce you to three books I particularly enjoyed reading back in 2006 … Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen Life in a travelling circus was hard, and when anything happened to upset the equilibrium it became brutal, as this well-researched novel details. These crises come one after the other here making this book Read More
Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews
This was a lovely showbiz memoir to read – Julie has the ability to see the good in everybody and make friends wherever she goes. This first volume of memoirs stops at the point Walt Disney was poised to make her an Oscar-winning megastar, but is no less interesting for that. I hope there will Read More
