There I was just a walkin’ down the street. When what do I see but a pile of books with a note saying “take them”. I took the one that looked most boring and therefore most likely to be good, All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Had no idea who he was but the [...]
Every now and then a book comes into my life that’s a little bit special. I love sci-fi and fantasy stories – if I’m going to read a story I want it to not be about every day life – so it’s strange I’ve gone so long without reading Dune, especially as I loved dodgy [...]
I’m a big fan of classic books, even if they mostly turn out to be rubbish because story telling has advanced so much. Of Mice and Men isn’t rubbish, it’s a great book. It has strong characters, a solid moral and a heart wrenching and shocking story but it has the wrong title. It should [...]
Having ploughed through this book in a mere two days, I can tell you now that it is very good. The story is like a short, blunt, tigery account of one person’s life in India and I simply could not put the thing down. Either I got through it too quickly or it was lacking [...]
A story about a psychiatrist and a one hundred year old lady may not sound like the most interesting basis for a book, but the Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry is brilliant. It’s not perfect but I really felt for that old dorris and that made me love the story. If you’re going to pick [...]
Hungry Hill is one of the best books you will probably never read. Only a few weeks ago I was in Fopp looking for a typically British novel and Hungry Hill seemed to fit the bill. The cover is grannyish and the photo of du Maurier inside is your typical nursing home fodder. It was [...]
The Complete Chihuahua Encyclopedia by Hilary Harmar, published in 1972, is a must read.
A number of years after the film came out and even longer since this book was released, I picked up a copy of the book by Tracy Chevalier in Oxfam for a mere £1.39. Probably the best spent £1.39 of my life, but then who knows what else I’ve bought for £1.39. A short book [...]
