Over the course of the last twelve months, I’ve read 97 books. This includes paperbacks, eBooks, hardbacks and a few audiobooks, but doesn’t include those where I gave up after the first couple of chapters. What follows is a list of some of the more memorable reads, though isn’t intended to be definitive or in…
I Talk Too Much I’ve been a Status Quo fan since the early seventies, and while I haven’t seen them live since 1980, I’ve always loved their music. Having said that, I did feel a little sceptical about reading this book, as whenever I saw them interviewed, Rossi often came across as a bit aloof…
On Writing (Audiobook) While out for a walk In June 1999, Stephen King was hit by a van. It was only after several major operations that he was able to start writing again. ‘On Writing’ is the story of how King picked himself up from this near tragedy, as well as recalling the many steps…
Born a Crime Trevor Noah’s childhood began with a crime – born of a black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father, the young lad risked being taken away by the Government simply for being the wrong colour. Growing up in South Africa in the latter days of apartheid and the unrestrained freedom that followed…
The Invention of Murder With its subtitle – ‘How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime’, this book traces the British public’s interest in murder as a sort of national entertainment. Though the book’s title clearly suggests we’re talking about the Victorian period (1837-1901), Ms Flanders begins her romp through the…
Zodiac 1968 – a hooded mass murderer terrifies the city of San Francisco and the Bay Area with a series of apparently random and vicious killings. From his first teenage victims, shot dead in a lover’s lane, he goes on to kill at least six people, though the real figure could be as high as…
The Monster Collection (Audiobook) Audio presentation of three classic Gothic tales, including Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I read these books as a teenager, though the only one I actually remember reading is Dracula. Given the plethora of film and TV…
Labyrinth (Audiobook) Carcassonne, 1209. When a young woman is given a mysterious book by her father, she begins a quest to uncover an ancient mystery – the secret of the true Grail. Twelve hundred years later, archaeology volunteer Alice Tanner finds two skeletons in a cave in the French Pyrenees. Realising there’s something familiar about…
The Murder of Harriet Monckton November 1843. A young woman, 23-year-old Harriet Monckton, is found dead in the privy behind the chapel in Bromley, Kent. It appears she died from swallowing prussic acid, but when the autopsy reveals she was also six months pregnant, the community begin to wonder who might be responsible, and if…
Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World For years the imperial red of the British was splattered over vast areas of the world, including America, Asia and Africa. But how did a tiny island manage to take on almost the entire planet? I bought both the hardback and audio versions of this fabulous book so…
