STARTING a previously unread book is a journey into the unknown, but one full of hope and expectation. Perhaps it’s sparked by an intriguing review, or an enthusiastic word of mouth recommendation. Maybe fellow book bloggers – at least those with no axe to grind or promoters to please – have heaped praise on the…
FOR those of a certain age (i.e. anyone born in the last century) one word will be sufficient to evoke fond memories of unmissable criminal court dramas. A reminder of tantalisingly clever tales rich in humour, wry comment and a panoply of credible and almost loveable rogues. And that word is Rumpole. Horace Rumpole, barrister….
BOOK lovers are a stubborn and peculiar breed. They will determinedly push on to the very last word despite all the negative vibes they are receiving from their current choice of reading matter. They plough relentlessly forward, deaf to a background noise about plot, characters, writing style, inconsistencies, typos (polite word for spelling errors), plodding…
ALMOST daily we are urged to place our trust in rapidly advancing new technology. The catch-cry is “Get Smart”. It is almost biblical in its unwavering insistence. Accept and ye shall be saved. Adapt to everything smart and ye shall enter the Elysian uplands where all the gizmos and contraptions that surround us will cease…
WHEN trawling through the innumerable Facebook pages devoted to crime fiction it seems as if Australia has resumed its status of more than two hundred years ago; a distant, unknown, almost unheard of land in danger of falling off the edge of the world. And this was before Covid-19 persuaded its dithering ensemble of state…
A BOOK obtained by an accidental encounter; a volume I had never considered in the several years since it first appeared in 2017 and won the Costa First Novel Award. Not even as an impulse buy while browsing bookshop shelves. This intriguing, mesmerising and continually delightful tale was plucked from a box of unwanted items…
FAME is a wonderful thing; it overrides ability in so many fields of endeavour. But nowhere more so than in the world of publishing. There the principle is simple: names sell. Celebrity is everything. Much to the chagrin of authors who have spent years honing their craft. Facebook “likes”, Instagram followers, Twitter retweets; these are…
IN the words of advice so often given, it was time to “get out more”; extend my horizons. Not physically, but in more mentally stimulating terms. Specifically, to broaden the reading experience, to redress the balance of genres ingested in my reading time. A glance at my bookshelves provided ample proof; without going into great…
MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN: well, Noel Coward got that right. Out comes the sun and thousands of Brits head for surgeries, pharmacies and A&Es in search of treatment for its unwelcome side-effects. NHS stats show that over three days close to 30,000 of us visited its website for information on heat-stroke and heat exhaustion. So,…
COMPARISONS are inevitable when books are transported from page to screen. Especially between the leading characters as they are read and as they are seen. An author’s descriptions enable us to build our personal bank of images as we move through the chapters. Fleshing out the bare bones we are given at the start until…