“The Hollow Man” is Oliver Harris’s first novel. His central character is a disillusioned, disreputable detective constable whose patch is Hampstead, but who knows the seedier parts of London too. The story concerns a suicide in a house in the … Continue reading →
This book tells the story of five young British artists over the decade leading up to and through the first world war. All of them – Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Mark Gertler, Richard Nevinson and Dora Carrington – studied at … Continue reading →
This is the first book in a planned trilogy. The second volume, “Europe at Midnight“, is due out in November 2015. “Europe in Autumn” is set in a dysfunctional Europe not too far in the future. The open borders ideal … Continue reading →
The Woodcutter of the title is the central figure in this story of a boy, the son of an estate forester in the Lake District, who grows up in the hills and is a natural and self-taught rock climber. After … Continue reading →
Another excellent work by Robert Harris. He has written a fully-researched but fictionalised account of the “Dreyfus affair” which split French society around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In his introduction Harris writes: “None of the characters … Continue reading →
What can I say about this seminal book that hasn’t already been said? It’s one of the founding texts of socialism, describing the plight of the working classes in the early 20th century when having a job meant you could … Continue reading →
Randall Munroe is the creator of the web comic xkcd.com, home of all geeks sufficiently socialised to have a sense of humour. In this book he applies rigorous* logic to analyse the often weird questions people ask him. Questions like … Continue reading →
Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden explore the role quantum weirdness might play in many processes in living organisms – avian navigation, the sense of smell, photosynthesis and more. The scientific evidence is growing, although as they themselves acknowledge their conclusions … Continue reading →
It’s probably a safe bet that not many people outside the USA have heard of John Wesley Powell, but he and a motley assortment of backwoodsmen and adventurers made one of the great exploration journeys that helped open up the … Continue reading →
A series of detective novels of varying merit by a French/American academic living in the city. Titles in order, with date read. Death at La Fenice (07.99) Death in a Strange Country (09.99) The Anonymous Venetian (10.99) A Venetian Reckoning … Continue reading →