Favourite Books of 2019

That time of year again, where I do my list of best books and movies. As usual, I've split my favourite books into fiction and nonfiction. Let's crack on. Nonfiction 5. Jump! by Daniel Engber Engber's short book is about the attempts to create parachutes as aviation began to take off (pun intended). He captures a …

Book Review: Raven Black by Ann Cleeves

As is family tradition, my dad passed this book on to me after he finished reading it and for a while it just sat in my "to read" pile. I think often when you're given a book there's less enthusiasm to crack on with it, the books you've chosen for yourself are more attractive prospects. …

Book Review: Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

After Murder on the Orient Express, this is probably Hercule Poirot's most famous case and further evidence that travelling with the Belgian sleuth is inadvisable. Fellow passengers on trains and planes have bought the farm while travelling with Poirot, and here death visits while he's on a Nile cruise. Poirot is in Egypt for a …

Book Review: Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart

I quite like Miranda Hart, there's something wonderfully simple and fun in her style of comedy. An acceptance and revelling in the silly, daft and the awkward. I got given this book a while ago and it got lost in my extensive "to read pile", but having been on night shifts recently I was in …

Book Review: Every Living Thing by James Herriot

This is the second of the two Herriot books I picked up at a charity thing a few months back. Set a couple of decades after Vet in Harness, this follows our Yorkshire based vet on his adventures in the 1950s. As with the earlier book this is a collection of reminisces and anecdotes, and …

Book Review: Mythos by Stephen Fry

Last year I read Neil Gaiman's retelling of various Norse myths and loved it, so the chance to read another writer I admire tackling ancient myths was a no-brainer. I've long been a fan of Stephen Fry, and I've been interested by Greek mythology since I was a kid. Fry tackles the mythology of the …

Book Review: Ring for Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

One upside of returning to night shifts is that I have more time to read. In my first two nights I got through a Hamish Macbeth novel and then on the third and fourth I read this. Again, this is a series of books I've only started this year, but having loved The Inimitable Jeeves, …

Book Review: Death of an Addict by MC Beaton

I've been back on night shifts and I find it easier to stay awake by reading than if I watch TV. Of course, you need a certain type of book. Something relatively light and easy to read, so this charity shop find fit the bill well. I've read another of the Hamish Macbeth books earlier …

Book Review: Vet in Harness by James Herriot

This is another book I picked up at a charity event with only a vague knowledge of. I knew that James Herriot's books had been adapted for film and television under the title All Creatures Great and Small, and he existed on the periphery of my general knowledge. I picked this and another of his …

Book Review: Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames

Last year I read and fell in love with Kings of the Wyld, Eames' novel which created a fantasy world of monsters and magic. In that world the mercenaries who fight the monsters are the rock stars of their world. The first book dealt with legendary band Saga reforming to save a beseiged city where …