“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ “

God Bless You Mr Rosewater [...]

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Each year, theres only one thing I really ask for at Christmas - and somehow Santa always brings it - I’m talking about my favourite book to start any year - Schotts Almanac. These amazing little collections of Trivia, Lists and other mental detritus are absolutely perfect gifts, you can dip into the book all [...]

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The Bloodstone Papers - Glen Duncan
Glen Duncan is my favourite author - so this will only go one way, but really this is a fascinating book. Set between the 1940’s in India and present day England, Duncan tells the story of young Indian man as he grows up from a brutal school environment, through the [...]

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Non Fiction - Chuck Palahniuk
I’ve only read one book by Palahniuk before (Choke) but I picked this up as a collection of short stories sometimes suits me on holiday. This is a collection of articles and essays collected by Palahniuk over his years of writing. Stories of steroid abuse, college wrestling and a particularly good [...]

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A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka
I normally skip past so called ‘comedy’ novels, but the cover attracted to me to this one. The story is of an 85 year old self centred Ukranian widower living in Peterborough - who decides to marry a much younger woman from the Ukraine in a marriage [...]

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I’m back! Just returned from two weeks holiday in France - and as usual for my holiday I took a pile of books to read while I was away. I’ll post some words about each of em - and you can see what kind of strangeness I’ve been reading:

Freakonomics by Levitt/Dubner
So much hype around this [...]

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