Category: Books

This slim volume is a well aimed blast at what should be relatively small proportion of our society who believe in some facile and provably untrue beliefs. Yet, as we know, there are all too many people who follow suspect “nutritionists”, waste money on homoeopathy, pay too much attention to 9/11 mythologies, and read “history”…

I’d not previously read any James Lee Burke novels, despite him having written over 25 in the past. But I heard him in the book section of the Simon Mayo programme a few weeks ago, and the setting of his most recent novel in and around New Orleans against the backdrop of Katrina was an…

As with my feebleness in reporting back on films I’ve seen recently, I’ve also neglected the printed word. That is to say, I’ve not listed the books I’ve read recently here. Now this may have little to do with media, TV, radio, or any of the other random things I tend to talk about here,…

One of my favourite sections in The Guardian is the Review section – largely made up of book reviews. For about 18 months, the section featured a weekly extract in the ongoing story of Tamara Drewe. Initially I didn’t read the strip. Then I realised that I needed to catch up, but didn’t get around…

Alan Johnston’s kidnapping in the Gaza Strip was one of the more shocking moments of last year, and I think most people were relieved when he finally emerged largely unscathed – physically at least. This is his book, and unusually it’s not a full blown affair like those of other hostages. Nor is it an…

Slide is one of the more recent Hard Case Crime novels – those wonderfully trashy hard-boiled crime novels. In this instance we follow the twin stories of “Slide” and “The M.A.X.” as Max Fisher likes to call himself. The book itself, I discover, is the sequel to Bust which came out last year, also under…

Jed Mercurio first sprang to attention with the wonderful medical TV series, Cardiac Arrest. At the time he was a practising doctor and wrote under a pseudonym. He went on to write a novel, Bodies, in a similar vein, and of course this was made into that rarest of things – a decent BBC Three…

Earlier this year, Michael Dibdin died, aged 60. But he left us a final Aurelio Zen novel. I’ve been reading the series about the Italian detective for years, and so it was with a slightly heart that I picked up this latest tome, knowing that it was be my last acquaintance with the man. If…

A couple of years ago, I went along to Borders after work one evening and saw Jon Courtenay Grimwood and a couple of other authors talk about their new SF books. Prior to that, the only Grimwood I’d read were his science fiction book review columns for The Guardian. This tale is quite intriguing. Bobby…

Another book recommended by Scott Pack via his blog. Electricity is a novel about Lily who’s a teenage epileptic. She lives in a seaside town somewhere in Yorkshire, and the only real family she has is her brother Barry. There was another brother, but he was sent away when she was little, and she’s not…

Imperium is the latest Robert Harris novel, and following on from Pompeii, he’s again set it in a Roman setting. This time, we effectively have the political life of Cicero – the lawyer and politician. The book is told by Tiro, Cicero’s slave and personal secretary, who, we’re told, essentially invented shorthand to record conversations…

I got hold of Sebastian Beaumont’s novel Thirteen on the basis of Scott Pack’s recommendation on his very good blog. The book revolves around the life of a Brighton taxi driver who pulls the night shift, and the strange things he begins to see and experience. What’s going on? He picks up passengers from a…

The Progressive Patriot is one of those books that’s going to defy categorisation in bookshops and libraries. It’s part autobiography, part history and part social history. Bragg takes us on something of a personal journey to understand his roots. We travel this journey, partly by way of his East End/Essex born family, but dip in…