Non-fiction / Military History
I like to read everything and anything that falls into my lap. So one day I found myself reading Agincourt by Juliet Barker. It’s a fascinating piece of history and details events leading up to, during, and after the famous battle. The writing style is good, and particular note must be given to the research which clearly had a lot of effort put into it. It is also refreshing to see that…
(more…)Thriller / Sci-fi
Fishermen disappear, tourists on the beaches are attacked, and whales start ramming cargo ships, overtaken by a strange “madness”. But why? We are greeted to two main characters. One, a whale specialist, works for a whale watching company in Alaska, and the other, a Norwegian scientist and marine expert. As the attacks and disappearances increase in number and severity the paths of these two characters…
(more…)Non-fiction / Naval History
The story of Erebus and Terror is surely a topic that’s sparked an interest with many people and it was fascinating to have a book deal with the two ships in such great detail. We see it all, life on board ship, activities and discoveries made, even glimpses into the interpersonal relationships between…
(more…)WW2 / Thriller
I like a good thriller. An exciting backdrop for our characters folds out for us in this one: the V2 program. One character part of the allied team tracking down the launch sites, one character part of the group who are launching the things. It has all the ingredients for an exciting page turner, a game of cat and mouse, high stakes, and behind it all are our two characters with their…
(more…)Horror / Thriller
This is from an author I’d never read before so wasn’t sure what to expect. The cover design didn’t particularly scream quality to me (yes, judging a book by it’s cover etc). However, the quality of the writing cannot be denied, this is a supremely well written story.
It is advertised as a horror book but I would describe it as a horror backdrop for a slow-burn thriller…
Fiction / Slice of Life
Many of us know Len Deighton for some of his more famous books such as The Ipcress File or SS-GB. This one I’d say counts as one of his more obscure works and if ever there was a hard book to rate, it would be this one. The story is about a “fictional” famous actor and a writer who has the task of writing his biography. We see glimpses of the actor’s current life which appears to be at it’s peak, and him wondering where…
(more…)Thriller
I remember seeing this book everywhere a few years back.
At home, book in hand, I read what it was about and immediately thought that it would not make for my kind of reading. It sounded like it just wouldn’t be my thing. I like action, adventure, fast-paced escapism from anything everyday, but I turned to the first page to see and I’ll fairly say that it hooked me in from…
Non-fiction / Economics
A fascinating introduction into the economics that affect our everyday life and a little further beyond. A very well written piece with a good writing style and if I could I’d give this 3.5 stars but since…
(more…)Non-fiction / Travel
A very well written book in which we are recounted the memories of Chris Broad who has travelled to Japan to teach English.
This is not a typical book of memoirs – while it follows Chris from his initial job interview at the Japanese Embassy in London and onwards to teaching in Japan and his further life there, the cultural insights we experience are…
Non-fiction / Naval History
I found this book interesting, detailed, and introduced me to an event (the shipwreck of the Wager) during a time that I don’t know much about (the War of Jenkin’s Ear).
I like to read a healthy amount of both fiction and non-fiction and having seen this book mentioned positively…