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Category: Books

  • Bookazines

    I’m slightly obsessed by bookazines. But first, let me apologise for using that word (also known, equally unattractively, as magbooks). It’s clearly made up by the publishing industry, and so perhaps I need to explain it first. It’s obviously a contraction of two words. Books need no real explanation. They get published; they sit on…

  • What I Watched, Listened To and Read Over Christmas

    You may or may not have enjoyed my Radio Times suggestions. I didn’t always follow them myself. But in the spirit of honesty, this is what I did watch over Christmas: The final two episodes of Cabin Pressure were recorded back in February, but only reached the airwaves over Christmas with the story being essentially…

  • Uploading Large eBooks to Amazon’s Cloud

    A bit of a ramble, but in short – does anyone know how to get large files (over 25MB) into the Amazon Kindle Library aside from via email? Read on for the detail… If there’s one thing that’s for certain, it’s that buying eBooks on Amazon is very easy. It could be easier – they’ve…

  • Branson: Behind the Mask

    Tom Bower is that rare thing – a writer who takes no prisoners. He goes where others fear to tread – or at least UK libel laws force others to fear to tread. His previous subjects have included Robert Maxwell, Bernie Ecclestone, Mohammed Al-Fayed and a previous book on Richard Branson. I’ve not read the…

  • Blockbusters and Sleepless In Hollywood

    If it feels to you, as it does to me, that there are an ever greater number of superhero and other franchise films clogging up cinemas, then you’d be right. And these two books explain pretty well between them what’s happening in Hollywood and beyond. Indeed, it’s the “beyond” that is really driving this. Blockbusters…

  • The Wasp Factory

    I bought this book, aged 15, on the basis of the cover. I remember seeing it in WH Smiths and being intrigued. A week later, I went back in and bought it. I haven’t looked back.

  • Radio Books

    In the back flap of Danny Baker’s new autobiography, Going to Sea in a Sieve, the simple text beneath Baker’s photo says: Danny Baker is a comedy writer, journalist and radio DJ. He currently presents six shows a week for the BBC and is a regular face on TV. He still lives in south-east London.…

  • January Books

    Here’s a vaguely accurate summary of the books I’ve read this month. An attempt, to some extent, to get me to read more. I can’t tell you how many books I have “backed up”… A Card From Angela Carter is an unusual thing. For starters, it’s due to be Radio 4’s Book of the Week…

  • From Gutenberg to Zuckerbeg

    In 2012, I’m going to try to write a little more about books. I say this every year, but I am going to try! First up is John Naughton’s From Gutenberg to Zuckerbeg: What You Really Need to Know About the Internet. This is a follow-up, of sorts, to A Brief History of the Future,…

  • The Booker Prize 2011

    Yesterday, Julian Barnes won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for his novel The Sense of an Ending. In the past, I’ve read some, but by no means all, Booker Prize winners. And of course I’ve read a fair number of the nominees. But this year, I made a concerted effort to read every novel on…

  • WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy

    Here’s a timely book. I received my copy of this book on Friday – 4th February. The introduction, penned by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, is dated 1st February! I know publishing speeds have moved on quite a lot, but it’s still pretty remarkable. The Guardian was serialising parts of this book last week. Whoever is…

  • True Grit

    In 1985, I won two tickets in a local newspaper comeptition to see the new Clint Eastwood western, Pale Rider, at the ABC Enfield (now Tesco). It was the first time I’d been in a cinema to see a western. That was partly because westerns didn’t appeal to a 15 year old boy, and partly…

  • The War For Late Night

    Occassionally, when you delve into the non-Sky branded movie channels with names like True Movies or Movies 4 Men, you might have come across a TV movie called The Late Shift. It was a dramatisation of a book by New York Times television writer Bill Carter’s account of the hostilities surrounding the succession of hosts…