Category: Books

I picked up the most recent Alan Banks novel in Asda last week at a bargain price, and devoured it in a couple of days. I do like these Banks books, even thought they’re not especially demanding. Of course there’s been something of a backstory build-up towards this for a while (how far back I…

Alexander Graham McCall has now written five novels in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, and this is the second, published here in its Abacus imprint. To be honest, not a whole lot happens in these books, with a couple of cases being solved with relatively minimal effort, but we learn lots about the…

In his new forward to this book, Michael Frayn runs through some of the titles under which the book has previously been published. To be honest, I’m not sure that Towards the End of the Morning is quite the right title still, but it’s the one we’re left with. Since Faber republished this book a…

It sometimes seems like everyone and their mum heard about Salam Pax and his blog from downtown Bagdhad in the run-up and lead into the Gulf War. At one point The Guardian republished extensive excerpts from his blog. Anyhow, this book is basically that blog in book form, re-ordered a little, and with a couple…

Join Me is one of those internet things (well not strictly internet) that passed me by. What a terrible thing. I like to think that I’m ahead of the game with this stuff, but nope – I had no idea about any of it, until I read something about the book somewhere. I tried not…

I got this book for two reasons. 1) it was advertised quite heavily in the national press, and anyone who says that it doesn’t work is deceiving only themselves, and 2) I read an interesting piece about it in The Guardian Review a few weeks back, which recommended it. The book was first published in…

Enduring Love is the third Ian McEwan novel I’ve read. The first was the very poor Booker winning Amsterdam, which was more of a short story than a novel, and hence exceptionally poor value at 6.99 for 178 pages (of largish type as I recall). None of the characters were particularly likeable, and the whole…

I’ve only ever read one previous Scott Turow novel – Presumed Innocent which of course was made into a Harrison Ford film. I don’t know how many books he’s written since but when this came out in hardback, it seemed to receive good reviews, so I thought I’d give it whirl. I was a little…

This is another of those books that was sold to me on the cover alone. Actually, it was the title alone that did it. I saw this book all over the place before finally picking it up in a buy 2 get a third free promotion. Anyhow it’s a very entertaining book set in Botswana…

This was the Booker winner earlier this year, and I wasn’t totally sure about it. It had received good reviews, but since it’s the story of an Indian boy (not Greek as maybe the title suggests) travelling across the ocean in the company of various animals including a Bengal tiger, I took the book to…

My book reading is playing its usual game of jumping around a little, but having quite enjoyed slugging back the last Inspector Banks book I read, I picked up another at the weekend. In Aftermath, the crime – a very grisly one – has already been committed and the killer is fighting for his life…