I grew up with bialys in New York City. Places that sold bagels sold bialys. When you got bored of bagels, you had a bialy. But fast forward several decades, and I can barely remember…

Peter Hollins has written a good, short, clear book explaining how all us can learn to be more self-disciplined (and get things done). He’s not the first to have done so, but I liked his…

The murder of the former Georgian Interior Minister Noe Ramishvili on a Paris street in 1930 would make a great thriller. It’s an incredible story and it involves a true villain, Lavrenty Beria, who publicly…

Every new book from British author Mick Herron is a cause for celebration. Even when the book isn’t actually a book. This “interlude” is more of a short story — a story in which appear…

I first came across Tim Spector because of COVID. His company, ZOE, launched an app which I and millions of others used to report daily on symptoms, vaccines, etc. Since then I’ve read one of…

A dead junkie is found in an Edinburgh squat, the victim of an overdose. To most cops, that’s barely worth a mention. To John Rebus, it looks like a crime. I didn’t love the first…

This novella (or short story) is the first thing I’ve read by Henry James and it was … interesting. At first the style is a bit heavy, with very long sentences, but over time one…

This is a superb book – well-written and compelling. It tells the little-known (or little-remembered) story of the relationship between the man known as the ‘Pope of Marxism’ and the Russian revolutionaries. Karl Kautsky was…

Ian Rankin is universally considered to be one of Britain’s greatest living writers of crime fiction. He has been called “the Scottish Ed McBain”, and as an admirer of McBain’s work, I was keen to…