Oxford Canal Walk – Leg 3
24 May 2017 Access: Start – drive to Banbury and park. Finish – arranged lift from Marston Doles back to Banbury. 44 – 55km Banbury – Claydon summit On what turned out to be the warmest day of the year … Continue reading →
Tony
The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin
This is the second outing for DI Malcolm Fox in Rankin’s post-Rebus world. I haven’t read the first, but I was disappointed with this book. It has a large – possibly too large – cast of characters but none of … Continue reading →
The House of Fame by Oliver Harris
In this third book featuring lone maverick detective Nick Belsey, he is once again in deep trouble with the Met, facing disciplinary action and a probable charge of murder. Hiding out to postpone the inevitable he accidentally stumbles into the … Continue reading →
The Racer by David Millar
This fine, well-written book by David Millar gives a fascinating insight into the world of professional cycle racing. It’s a scrappy, messy, intense, painful world described not through the rose-coloured spectacles of the fan press or the banal commentaries of … Continue reading →
Doors Open by Ian Rankin
It should have been the perfect art heist carried out by art lovers turned amateur criminals. But the real underworld of Edinburgh came in on the act and things turned unpleasant. No Rebus in this novel, but Rankin hasn’t lost … Continue reading →
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford
In this book Rutherford explains what the latest research in DNA tells us about humans – how we evolved, where we came from and how each of us is both unique and closely related to everyone else. He sets out … Continue reading →
An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
Like Iain Pears’ ‘Stone’s Fall‘, ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’ has greed, espionage, love, lust, betrayal, duplicity and murder. And like Stone’s Fall it is told in different voices, four this time. Its setting is Oxford in the early 1660s, … Continue reading →
Europe in Winter by Dave Hutchinson
This book, the third in Dave Hutchinson’s ‘Fractured Europe’ series (of four, I gather) keeps up the standard set by the first two, ‘Autumn‘ and ‘Midnight‘. The action shifts from place to place, gradually digging through layers of confusion and … Continue reading →
Africa Solo by Mark Beaumont
It’s 2015 and Mark Beaumont’s back on his bike. Round the World – done it. North and South America – done it. Then a break from the bike to attempt the transatlantic rowing record – not done it because the … Continue reading →
Paradise Lost by John Milton
In this story none of the characters comes out well, and there isn’t a happy ending.
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