This a wonderful book. No, really. I was a bit concerned as I don’t always enjoy anthologies, and the only author names I recognised were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzerald, and Dorothy Parker. But that…Read more…

I recently saw (again) the film, starring Michael Caine and the late Donald Sutherland, and this awakened in me an interest in reading the original book. There were a couple of pleasant surprises. For one…Read more…

This thoroughly-researched, engaging book is full of stories that I didn’t know, showing the vast extent of disinformation campaigns over the last century or so — and not only done by the Russians. Rid has…Read more…

Rachel Collinson knows a lot about how non-profit organisations and charities can improve their fundraising and campaigning — but she only shares some of it in this short book. This is understandable because she earns…Read more…

This is an early book by Stephen King and when I read that it was his take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I thought — why not? But it’s not King’s best effort (he improved as…Read more…

This very short book has some real gems in it. Some quite famous authors and historians explain not only why they read but also why they buy books, and why they write. And while so…Read more…

Anne Applebaum is a first-rate historian, a very good writer and a campaigner for human rights and democracy. And this is a very good and important book. But — while its description of the evils…Read more…

This book, the 4th in the Cassie Raven series, is as good as the others, which is saying a lot. Cassie is a twenty-something mortuary technician in Camden, a neighbourhood in north London. Her “special…Read more…

This book combines two things that I enjoy reading about very much: magic and espionage. And it does a good job with both — especially the magic. (One of the authors worked closely with Derren…Read more…

In this well-written and fascinating short book, Roberto Garvía focusses almost entirely on Esperanto’s rivals among the other “international auxiliary languages”. There are two of these that matter Volapük and Ido, both long-forgotten except by…Read more…

Stephen King is a superb writer of short stories, even if he is better known as a novelist. And to call all the stories in this hefty, nearly 500 page book, “short” stories is a…Read more…

A clever and witty book filled with examples of things NOT to do if you’re writing your first novel. And while the authors insist that unlike other writing books, they are telling you about sure-fire…Read more…

This, the second book in Mark Billingham’s new Blackpool-based crime series, continues an unbroken trend of superb story-telling, mixed with humour and characters you actually care about. DS Declan Miller sounds at first like a…Read more…

The third book in the long-running Alex Cross series seems a good place to take a break. While the story has a good beginning, by the end it becomes an excuse for the author to…Read more…

The second Alex Cross novel was actually made into a Hollywood film before the first one was. And maybe that’s a good thing, because it’s a better, tighter book. Cross is becoming an increasingly interesting…Read more…