I do enjoy Monica Ali’s books. Brick Lane was superbly written and I read it at a very poignant time in my life when I was leaving Bangladesh after many years of living there, so it is close to my heart. Ali had been criticised by many for effectively being a British girl who knew… Read More Book Review: Love Marriage by Monica Ali
I’ll be blunt: this is a ridiculous book. I had a real vested interest in learning from this author. My autistic son, last year, got a German Shepherd puppy to train as an autism assistance dog. GSDs are not the best choice of dog for this kind of profession. They make good guard dogs and… Read More Book Review: Your Dog is Your Mirror by Kevin Behan
Jeanette Winterson is roughly twelve years older than me. We both grew up in northern towns and, assuming the ‘Jeanette’ of the novel bears enough relation to the author (they are NOT the same person, as the author points out in her introduction), we both grew up in religious homes, in communities which were ‘zealously’… Read More Book Review: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
While my reading list is eclectic and deliberately as wide-ranging as possible, I do try to make room for ‘classic’ books – novels I should have read decades ago but somehow didn’t – to ‘catch up’ on all of those before it is too late. Regular readers of my reviews will probably note that I… Read More Book Review: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Yet another of those ‘classic books’ sat on my shelf for a long period of time (decades, in fact) with the utmost intention to ‘read one day’. Finally, last year, I got around to it. This was helped along by the fact that the famous scene – where Walter Hartright, the main protagonist, meets the… Read More Book Review: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
It is hard – very hard – to go wrong with Neil Gaiman. He’s an almost perfect storyteller and the worlds he conjures up are interesting, thoughtful and vibrant. Anansi Boys is up there with the best of his work. It is a delightful novel. Partly a form of sequel to American Gods – but… Read More Book Review: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
I had the delight of watching Romany Romany (so good, they named her twice!) at the end of last year. Her book was on sale afterwards and I very much had to get a copy. What a character this lady is! Both on stage and off, she is larger than life. A conundrum, yet also… Read More Book Review: Spun into Gold by Romany Romany
My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a beautifully written novel by the erudite Nicholas Graham. Set in Biblical times, this is absolutely not a book that staunchly evangelical Christians are going to enjoy but everyone else will. There is much that you will recognise from the Gospel stories and, of course, many of… Read More Book review: The Judas Case by Nicholas Graham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Jeremy Williams is one of the top writers on climate change. His book, The Economics of Arrival, written with Katherine Trebeck, is arguably one of the best modern books tackling climate change and economics. His website – The Earthbound Report – is recognised as one of the best on… Read More Book Review: Climate Change Is Racist: Race, Privilege and the Struggle for Climate Justice by Jeremy Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is my first Graham Greene book – not by choice but by virtue of the book having sat on my shelf for many, many years. I’d never heard of it before, unlike greater classics such as ‘Our Man in Havana’, ‘Brighton Rock’, ‘The Honorary Consul’ and, of course,… Read More Book Review: The Comedians by Graham Greene
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