It’s painful to admit to being late to the party, but here I am, “discovering” a writer, long after everyone else has been a fan for years. “Slow Horses” was published in 2010, so – yup – this is more than a decade late. There’s even a TV series based …
This enthralling book made perfect lockdown reading. Any personal, self-indulgent tendency to wallow in despair at the Coronavirus crisis swamping the world, could be put into some sort of context while reading this book. When the entire world was at war, when Hitler’s troops were planning a mass invasion of …
Whoever said that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover has obviously never read any of Fiona Caulfield’s travel guides. They are simply stunning. And that’s before you even start to read them. Just the look and the feel of Ms Caulfield’s gorgeously produced guide book are enough to …
I am an unabashed fan of the Inspector Singh series, so please don’t misunderstand me when I say that “A deadly Cambodian crime spree” is possibly the best book in the series thus far. The previous three books are all brilliant reads, don’t get me wrong. Good, funny, insightful, all-round …
Yup, guilty as charged I am indeed becoming a bit of an Inspector Singh junkie, having just polished off the third in the series in the space of a week. And books 4-6 are downloaded and ready to go. In the third book in the series, Inspector Singh is on …
Can there be many things better than reading 2 Alexander McCall Smith novels back to back? One day “The Forgotten Affairs of Youth”. The next day, “The Importance of being seven”. The joys of being on holiday. Both of these novels are set in Edinburgh, but in different parts of …
One shouldn’t especially like a book because it is based in one’s home town, should one? Or is that lovely insider feeling of “Yes, of course, I remember that building,” or “Yes, yes, that is exactly the way it used to feel” reason enough to love a book ? Oh, …
There is something deeply moving, reading an extraordinary book like Fergal Keane’s “Road of Bones” whilst staying in Kohima, the little town that is the centrepiece for the dramatic events of 1944. I was in Nagaland (incidentally the most un-Indian feeling place I have ever been to in 30 years …
Philip Roth’s most recent novel, “Nemesis”, is set in Newark, New Jersey in the summer of 1944. Far away in Europe, the war is on, heading towards an Allied Victory, while back in the hot, exhausted suburb of Weequahic, a battle of an equally deadly nature is taking place. A …
