“It was a pleasure to burn.” Twice!

What an iconic first line: one of those that often comes up in quizzes. Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 is an absolute classic of spec fiction which I first read in the 1970s. I invested in the lovely Folio Society edition some years ago, but was finally spurred on to reread it due to Read More

An Author’s View of the Film Adaptation of Their Novel

The Magic: the story of a film by Christopher Priest The Prestige by Christopher Priest published in 1995, which our Book Group read in late 2006 way before this blog started, is a novel that has stayed with me for several reasons: firstly – it’s a wonderful novel, secondly – Nikola Tesla is a secondary Read More

Electricity – on page & screen

When I was beginning to think about dipping my toe into the blogging world, there were several blogs I followed religiously including publishing guru Scott Pack’s now-defunct ‘Me & My Big Mouth’. One of the authors he championed was Ray Robinson, whose first novel Electricity was published in 2006. I quickly got myself a copy Read More

Review catch-up

I am still behind on my reviewing, even though I seem to have unlocked my reviewer’s block – so today, I have a trio of short reviews for you… The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick This is a rare case for me of having seen the film before I read the book. I loved Read More

Book vs film: Too much Julie, not enough Julia?

Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell This was the July choice for our book group, which gave those who didn’t read the book time to watch the film instead.  I managed to do both, and they are quite different animals… Julie Powell and husband Eric hail from Texas. They live in Read More