Tony Robinson I liked him in Black Adder and his later documentaries. This cover his life and includes a lot of theatre work includeing his time through the 60s and 70s and communial living. Some of his political and union recollections did not inte...

George and Weedon Grossmith This is a lovely, comical glimpse into the life of a late 19th century clerk. Mr Pooter is a respectable member of society and respects the social ladder, admiring those above him and looking on disdane those who do not f...

Nick Hornby First book I have read of Nick. I have seen the movie adaptions of High Fidelity and About a Boy and enjoyed them. This one is about 4 suicidal people that meet on a rooftop on new years eve. They then help each other. I liked being intr...

Ray Bradbury I expected science fiction and instead got small town america in the 1920s. It reads like a number of short story ideas loosely linked together. Maybe it could be described as the magic of everyday life. It was strange in places. I woul...

Mary Gribbon & John Gribbon Love these 18th and 19th century naturalist and botanist stories. Each chapter concerns 1 person, all the 11 chapters are sequential over time from 1627 to 1911. It is a story mostly of privilege with people from the...

Simon Wincester This book covers a lot of land conflicts, from aboriginals, american indians, palestine, england. It just seemed to be a story of exploitation of previous owners. Not quite the research of his other books. Each chapter was a good rea...

Terry Pratchett This is the second book in the witches series, it has Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick in it again. This time it follows a fairy tail/fantasy trope of evil duke murders king. Rightful heir returns to save kingdom. I...

Bill Browder International political thriller. Court cases, spies, money laundering, murder. It read like a documentatry, just following events as they happend to Bill. Was an enlightening and entertaining read....

Justin Pollard The real stories behind our greatest scientific discoveries. These are short chapters of a page or two, with a new subject each chapter. They are grouped intop sections like 'Domestic Science' and 'Accidents, Errors and Unintended Co...

Terry Pratchett This is the third time I have read this book in this blog. I like the witches series and so I pick up the first one. I will have to continue with the others books when I get a need for a witches story. Again, it did not dissapoint, ...

Mike Carter Some mid-life crisis books I have read have been self indulgent. "White male with everything the world could ask for gets upset", that sort of thing. But this one had some heart and Mike shared some of his personal history along with the...

John Keay A story of surveying 1600 miles of the earths surface. It follows the lives of two men, William Lambton and then George Everest. It is a short book at 172 pages. The thing i enjoyed the most were the stories form the indian subcontentant -...

Terry Pratchett I am a big fan of Pratchett and I like the Rincewind books. You can see how he turned the normal fantasy storyline into his own. This time we are in Two Flowers country. Very funny, great characters, well paced....

Stephen Pumfrey Enjyable non-fiction about natural philosophers and scientific progression. Was not as well researched or put together as others I have read. Maybe it was due to the lack of source material. Still a good read, and takes you back to t...

Paul Theroux I read Paul's mediterranean travel book earlier in the year, The Pillars of Hercules, and enjoyed it. This one was the same quality of writing and human observation, but it was bleak. Travelling through impoverished countries and observ...

Peter Pagnamenta This book covers 1830-1890s. From British aristocrats visiting the wild west as tourists and taking in some hunting. To setting up towns and running businesses. To setting up huge cattle stations. We spent enough time with each char...

Lesley Adkins and Roy Adkins Fascinating piece about life in the late 17 early 1800s. From the wealthy to the poor workers, using diaries and extracts from peoples own accounts. Each chapter concerned with Birth, Work, Leisure etc. Some reference to...

Matthew Engel This was a gentle and insightful exploration of the history of rail in England. It starts as a normal  travel novel and then gets quite political with the history of government involvement in the rail system. I enjoyed both aspect...

Robert Ludlum I loved the Bourne series, I read them when I was young and before the movies. I love the movies too. This book is not as good. To start with I did not feel much empathy for the characters, most of which were wealthy americans using sw...

James Herriot This was more honest than I expected. I thought it was another bucolic tale of country England, this time with the local vet. It was intense and challenging, you really felt for James, the animals and to a lesser extent the farmers. Go...

Paul Theroux A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean I loved it, reminded me of Bill Bryson, not as humorous though, but the same quality of people and place observation. I suppose abosolutely necessary for travel writers. But Paul can see and describe p...

John Wyndham I am a big fan of Johns since reading triffids in high school. This is a short book at 153 pages. Its seems like a short story was good enough to expand. I suppose that is how most SciFi books work. It has a great central concept and th...

K.A.Austin This was a well researched and well put together book. I had read about Cobb and Co before. This book was more exhaustive from the very start to the very end. Lovely insights into early Australia and its travel needs. Good stories about t...

Simon Winchester Joseph Needham and the great secrest of China. This follows the life of Joseph Needham and his fascination with China. Particularly the neglected history, where western civilisation took credit for many inventions, when in fact Chi...

Grant Naylor Red Dwarf and Better Than Life Omnibus This is one of my comfort reads, funny and familiar. Two vloumes in one with one overarching story line but it can also be broken up into different sci-fi concepts. This is why it lent itself to T...

S.M.Stirling This one was really hard to get into. The concepts of a pupulated Mars and venus was fine, btu the timeframe was the mid 80s, so I was a bit thrown. I had to imagine a alternate dimension to suspend disbelief. once you di get a hold of ...

Margaret Atwood This is the first of Margarets books I have read and she is excellent. Instead of some topical light  weight book to address the financial crash of 2008 this is an indepth study of humanities relationship with Debt. I really enj...

Fred Secombe This is a lovely, gentle story from pastoral england. A young curate and his empericnes in a new parish. Well paced, good story, funny episodes. I will keep an eye out for any more of Fred's work. Just the tonic....

Peter Doherty I thought this was a normal science book. It was infact like a short story version. Each chapter had different topics and moved through them quickly, with some loose connection to hot air to tie them all together. It did not build on e...

Paul Theroux Another dystopian future that I liked. Segmented humanity, so much that they called people different geographical areas aliens. The book starts with an affluent group visiting a no-go area for new years. The rest of the book is explorin...