Let’s be honest: despite the “bestseller” label and the eulogies on the back cover, this is far from being a great book. Here are echoes of many powerful classics – “The Magus“, “Crime and Punishment“, “Catcher in the Rye“, “Lord … Continue reading →
Not having done any Chaucer at school, reading The Canterbury Tales is one of those things I promised myself I would find time for and am pleased to have done at last! Although some parts are rather tedious six centuries … Continue reading →
This is the first of Alexander McCall Smith’s books in this series, set in Botswana, in which he introduces his principal character Mma Precious Ramotswe. The book combines a fictional biography of Mma Ramotswe with a series of short-story style … Continue reading →
Despite the titles of Mears’ popular TV series “Extreme Survival” and “World of Survival”, this is not a survival handbook. If I understand Mears correctly, he draws a distinction between “bushcraft” and “survival”. Bushcraft is an end in itself, a … Continue reading →
Elizabeth Main was one of the early pioneers of Alpine mountaineering, and especially, it follows, of women’s mountaineering. She was also an accomplished self-taught photographer. This book is based on a collection of her early photographs now housed in the … Continue reading →
I guess this book was produced to support the National Mountaineering Exhibition at Rheged, near Penrith (there’s no price on it and no ISBN), and it came free when I renewed my subscription to the BMC! It’s a soft-back coffee-table … Continue reading →
This is an account of an eccentric journey by an eccentric Englishman. Nicholas Crane is the man who, a few weeks after getting married, left his wife at home while he spent 18 months walking along the watershed of Europe … Continue reading →
An elderly friend of the family, hearing that my wife was going to classes on the Philosophy of Mind, once advised “It doesn’t do to go into things too deeply”. That’s the problem I have with this book. On one … Continue reading →
Frayn successfully captures the confusions and uncertainties of the adult world as perceived by children, and the difficulties of trying to piece together events from an adult’s memory of childhood. Which are real memories, and which are ‘memories’ of things … Continue reading →
Sequel to "Blood Rain". Not one of Dibdin’s best – rather contrived, episodic, and with superficially-drawn characters. But it does leave the way open for the next book … .
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