In this well-written and fascinating short book, Roberto Garvía focusses almost entirely on Esperanto’s rivals among the other “international auxiliary languages”. There are two of these that matter Volapük and Ido, both long-forgotten except by…
Stephen King is a superb writer of short stories, even if he is better known as a novelist. And to call all the stories in this hefty, nearly 500 page book, “short” stories is a…
A clever and witty book filled with examples of things NOT to do if you’re writing your first novel. And while the authors insist that unlike other writing books, they are telling you about sure-fire…
This, the second book in Mark Billingham’s new Blackpool-based crime series, continues an unbroken trend of superb story-telling, mixed with humour and characters you actually care about. DS Declan Miller sounds at first like a…
The third book in the long-running Alex Cross series seems a good place to take a break. While the story has a good beginning, by the end it becomes an excuse for the author to…
The second Alex Cross novel was actually made into a Hollywood film before the first one was. And maybe that’s a good thing, because it’s a better, tighter book. Cross is becoming an increasingly interesting…
A handful of observations about this book — the first in the long-running Alex Cross crime novels. First, it is a very long book, much longer than, for example, Roses are Red, the sixth book…
Years ago, when James Patterson was an author and not a brand, he wrote some terrific stories. This is one of them and I’ve read it at least twice. It’s a textbook example of how…
This is a good, short introduction to the subject for anyone thinking about writing a thriller. While much of the text is formulaic (it’s part of the “Teach Yourself” series, so there are a lot…
This is a beautifully-illustrated, short history of America’s war for independence and the global war it triggered. But it is very much a work of “military history” focussed on the names of commanders and locations…