I have a simple rule - if I meet someone at a party and they say they've written a book, then I will immediately buy that book. It's a strategy which has worked out well; leading me to some truly interesting and delightful prose. Rosalind Brown (a fellow UEA graduate) has written a stunning little book. Practice is an almost Proustian meander through a day-in-the-life of a young woman going…
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I did not care for this one bit. I found it cloying, infantilising, and far too circuitous. It starts off as a bit of an overwritten melodrama, where every phrase is a delicious flower waiting to bloom, but ends up being a over-sugared mess with a rotten heart. Parts are just exhausting to read, with no time to catch your breath between scenes. That can work in some books when spaced out -…
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It is hard to write a book in the second person. It is even harder to make it this good. It would have been easier to write a salacious cash-in with a dozen shocking revelations in each chapter. Instead, Andrew Hankinson attempts to use Raoul Moat's own words to build up a picture of the man. You have nine days and your whole life to prove you are more than a callous murderer. Go. It is…
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After reading Evie King's previous book Ashes To Admin - Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer I was eager to read her not-quite-a-sequel. We know what happens after death; paperwork. Gas bills need to be cancelled, funeral wishes need to be carried out, money needs to be apportioned between warring family members. When you die, you won't be there to experience the annoyance and …
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This is a charming and funny book all about the various ways humans have promoted fake medical cures in exchange for money. Despite the grim (and occasionally distressing) subject matter, the tone remains light and poppy throughout. There are lots of snarky asides (especially about the fake medical practitioners) and a real appreciation for the bizarre. It's fun the whole way through, although …
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A few months ago, I went to see Dr Hutchinson record his stand-up comedy special for the BBC - it's about his experiences working in the NHS as a Black doctor. As the title of the book implies, some of the public can be a mite suspicious that anyone with even a hint of melanin can rise beyond being a porter or, at a push, a nurse. Much like Adam Kay's "This Is Going To Hurt", this is part…
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It's hard to craft a book with so much righteous indignation - let alone make it funny, accessible, and informative. Nevertheless, Dipo Faloyin has succeeded in writing a spectacular takedown of the myths which are often perpetrated about Africa. It starts in the best way possible: [Insert generic African proverb here. Ideally an allegory about a wise monkey and his interaction with a tree,…
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The thing about Romeo and Juliet is that it is a true story. It isn't literally true, but it is literary true. We see the same motif repeated throughout all cultures and all times. Caroline Lea (writing as Caroline Finch) asks an important question - what if every pair of star-cross'd lovers were reincarnations of the original Verona duo? The essence of tragedy is that the end is unavoidable.…
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Like sticky popcorn, this is a moreish but ultimately unsatisfying set of stories. After I flamed out of Dungeon Crawler Carl, someone suggested I try this series. I can see why! It's campy sci-fi fun, with enough tropes to keep you chuckling and enough tension to keep you turning the pages. Bob's brain is uploaded to a computer post-mortem. Awoken in a dystopian future, he has to pilot a…
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This book, by The Times' former Architecture Correspondent, stands in direct opposition to A City on Mars. Whereas that book presented a (perhaps too) sceptical look at the realities of living on other planets, Jonathan Morrison's book goes (perhaps too far) in the opposite direction. How to Build a Space Station is a beautiful examination of just how important architecture will be to our…
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This is a gorgeous set of short stories - and a good deal more accessible than some of the heavyweight prose Liu has previously been involved with. Some of the stories contain sentences which are complex jewels to be savoured. What I particularly like is the way he moves between almost-prosaic Earth-bound stories to the the most extraordinary flights of fancy. One story might be set in a…
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As part of my grant from NLnet to improve my Fediverse bot project, I'm spending time making sure I understand all the fundamentals of ActivityPub. The problem with Internet standards is they're scattered all over the place. Abandoned forums, half-maintained wikis, mailing lists with obscure rules, and monolithic blocks of text. Sometimes you just want one book which collates all the info and…
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