Tag: books
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Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
Swan Song is a remarkable novel that explores the life of Truman Capote and his “swans” the society women he hung around with – you could say, the set that he inveigled his way into. I confess that I knew relatively little about Capote, having not seen any of the biographical films about him, nor…
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I Like to Watch by Emily Nussbaum
Emily Nussbaum is The New Yorker‘s TV critic, and this is a collection of her writing about TV from that magazine and others that she had worked for previously. There are often short introductions to these pieces, and a couple of brand new pieces – one of which takes up a significant proportion of the…
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Need For The Bike by Paul Fournel
My Tour de France inspired cycling themed book marathon continues with Need For The Bike, a classic that I’d somehow never heard of. Paul Fournel is a French writer, poet, publisher, and cultural ambassador – a wonderful job description to have, I’m sure you’ll agree. He’s also been in love with bikes since he was…
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Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar
Continuing my non-stop cycling reading during this year’s Tour de France, I turned to a volume has been sitting around on my bookshelf* for a number of years – David Millar’s book where he digs into his life story, and in particular the years that he doped. I’ve always liked David Millar, and latterly he’s…
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Three Weeks, Eight Seconds: The Epic Tour de France of 1989 by Nige Tassell
Channel 4 burst onto UK TV screens in 1982 – a new commercially funded public service broadcaster. One of the things it would do was cover sports that the traditional BBC and ITV weren’t showing. They would show highlights of the NFL and even kabaddi. But for me, the sport that Channel 4 would really…
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The Yellow Jersey by Peter Cossins
The first thing to say about this book is that it’s beautifully made. Telling stories from the Tour isn’t a new idea – there are dozens of books that, quite often, recycle the same stories of races of yesteryear. But this book takes as its starting point the Yellow Jersey. This year is the 100th…
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The Tour According to G: My Journey to the Yellow Jersey by Geraint Thomas
For many people, Geraint Thomas was the surprise of last year’s Tour de France. He had gone into the race as joint leader with Chris Froome with Team Sky. Having spent years as a loyal lieutenant, he’d be a protected rider. While Froome had triumphed in the Giro d’Italia earlier in the year, to become…
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One Way Ticket: Nine Lives on Two Wheels by Jonathan Vaughters
As the Tour de France is underway – as I write, they’re on the first rest day – I thought I’d catch up on a few cycling books, both new and ones I’ve been sitting on for a few weeks/months/years. First up is One Way Ticket: Nine Lives on Two Wheels by Jonathan Vaughters. Vaughters…
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Then She Vanishes by Claire Douglas
A mystery about secrets and families set in the West Country. It seems like an open and shut case. Heather has been seen walking into a house and killing a man and his mother, before attempting to take her own life. Now she lies in a coma. Jess was once Heather’s best friend although something…
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Heida: A Shepherd at the Edge of the World by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir and Heiða Ásgeirsdóttir
This book captures the fascinating world of a remote sheep farmer in Iceland. Heida (or more properly Heiða) is a sheep farmer who single-handedly runs her farm, Ljótarstaðir. Having previously read James Rebank’s A Shepherd’s Life, about how things work in the Lake District, you discover that while some things are the same – everyone…
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The Legacy by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Having recently read and enjoyed The Absolution, the third in the ‘Freyja and Huldur’ series, I returned to the first book – The Legacy – in my ongoing Icelandic crime fiction reading marathon. A prologue begins with three children being split up by social services – something that will clearly have ramifications later. And indeed,…
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The Island by Ragnar Jónasson
It’s 1988, many years before the events recounted in the first of the Hidden Iceland trilogy, The Darkness. A pair of teenagers have headed out to a remote summer house for a weekend of passion – but things don’t go quite the way they’d planned. Next thing, the girl’s father has been arrested and charged…
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The Absolution by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
The Absolution is the third in the “Children’s House” series of books from one if Iceland’s leading crime writers. A teenager has been brutally murdered, with the perpetrator first capturing some kind of apology and then sharing the video to victim’s friends on Snapchat. The police race to capture the video while it’s still there and…