Mark Billingham was taking a real risk writing this book. After two decades of turning one excellent crime novel after another featuring North London’s Tom Thorne, he’s now put that series aside (he says temporarily)…Read more…

Melvyn Dubofsky wrote one of the great books about the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and followed it up with this short biography of the IWW’s most famous leader, ‘Big Bill’ Haywood. It’s a…Read more…

I was not aware when I purchased this book that it was the most recent in a series featuring American-born Cambridge professor (and spy) Tom Wilde. The good news is that knowing that, I’ve saved…Read more…

I admit that it’s a great title. And the opening few pages are kind of cute. And then — nothing. The book has absolutely nothing to say. And it’s based on nothing, other than Mark…Read more…

The opening pages of this book by one of America’s greatest writers were a shock both to Richard Wright’s agent and publisher. They were so violent and painful to read that the book could not…Read more…

I must be the last person in England to have never read anything by “national treasure” Stephen Fry, but this book came up in conversation recently, so I have now done so. The book had…Read more…

This short book feels like a much longer one, as it covers some of the long history of Georgian culture, focussing on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s a book about poets and…Read more…

Thomas Mullen is an author I’d never come across before, but his other books have gotten rave reviews. And this one had an intriguing premise: imagine a world where in the course of a few…Read more…

This is a very good and important book, and it deserves a wide audience. I read a lot about this subject and I still managed to learn things I didn’t know before. (I didn’t know,…Read more…

I bought this book and read it just before seeing the play in London last week (starring the amazing Sophie Okonedo). Reading it and then seeing it made it absolutely clear to me why a…Read more…

Five years after buying this book, I finally sat down to read it. It is very good. Unfortunately, the author passed away in the meanwhile and we will hear no more of his incisive —…Read more…

Mira Grant has written post-apocalyptic books about zombies, a couple of novels about killer mermaids, and the like. Her stories are often (always?) about empowered women, contain lots of blood and gore, and healthy doses…Read more…

Dr Michael Mosley’s latest best-seller (or soon-to-be bestseller) is one of a number of new books that promise massive improvements in your life — if you just do one tiny little thing. And yet —…Read more…

Patricia Cornwell is a very good writer of crime fiction. I have enjoyed several of her novels featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta. But I think she should have stuck to the fiction. This 365-page tome is…Read more…

Barely eight years after the end of the Second World War, and with much of Berlin in ruins, workers in the Soviet Zone launched an extraordinary uprising. The trigger was an increase in the demands…Read more…

A very short (52 pp) collection of the wit and wisdom of the witty and wise Oscar Wilde. Much of what he wrote here is nonsense, but much of it is the opposite — and…Read more…

This is a brilliant book. Owen Matthews, a veteran journalist covering Russia, tells the story of the run-up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 and the months that followed. The book was…Read more…

Ben Macintyre is a great story-teller. But to see him at his best, he needs a great story to start with. Having watched the recent BBC series based on this book, I was keen to…Read more…

Three weeks ago I read the first of the Travis Chase novels (The Breach) and in my review, I said that I would not be continuing with the series. But I lied. I’ve now completed…Read more…

This book, shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, is very hard to categorise. It begins as a kind of police procedural, though one that is at times laugh-out-loud funny. It has elements of horror. And…Read more…