Book Review: The Pirate by Harold Schechter

I picked this up as part of Amazon's Prime Reading thing where a few books are included free with Prime. There are a series of true crime short reads, and going into a run of night shifts they sounded just the thing to help pass the time. This recounts a grizzly triple murder aboard a …

Book Review: This Van Could Be Your Life by Mishka Shubaly

I've read a few of Shubaly's short memoirs before and I'm a big fan of his writing, which is insightful, darkly comic and incredibly honest. In previous books he's recounted his time on the road as a musician, a failed attempt on reality TV, getting shipwrecked and becoming an ultra runner which helped to get …

Book Review: Spandex Ballet by Lee Kyle

I picked this up as part of my now expired Kindle Unlimited deal, because it seemed like an interesting story about a man looking back at his time as a mediocre professional wrestler in the UK. There aren't that many books about wrestling here in the UK (that I know of, feel free to post …

Book Review: The Diamond Formula by Alina Simone

This is the third of the Inventions series I've read, and the last in the series, which is a shame as they've been a great series of short, fascinating stories from history. This is probably the best of the three, partly because it has the strongest story at the centre. In 1905, Henri Lemoine claimed …

Book Review: DTLA Hustler by Charles St Anthony

Of all the ways I've found a book this was one of the oddest. The author liked one of my tweets about RuPaul's Drag Race and followed me, and after checking out his profile I followed back and grabbed this on my soon to be ending Kindle Unlimited deal. I've always liked the idea of …

Book Review: Just Off for a Walk by Stephen Reynolds

This is another one of my Kindle Unlimited books, and is a pretty decent read. It details Reynolds' journey walking the full 630 miles of the South West Coast Path around Somerset, Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. Reynolds began walking to help with his insomnia and as someone who has found that walks help with my …

Book Review: The Electric Fairy by Alex Mar

This is the second of a series of Kindle Singles about intervention during the Belle Epoque (Beautiful Era, 1871-1914), a period I know very little about. It was a time of advancement in science and art, with leaps forward in technology changing the world and shaping the 20th century. The period of optimism, of course, …

Book Review: Jump! By Daniel Engber

My Kindle Unlimited subscription lapses soon, and so I've decided to try and make the most of it. Part of this was checking out a few Kindle Singles, starting with this one. Part of a series about inventions and innovation, this book follows two men who in the 1910s were involved in trying to create …

Book Review: The Sum of My Parts by James Sanford

I'm not usually a fan of misery memoirs or cancer survivor stories. In fact before this the only book about having cancer I can remember reading is Lance Armstrong's. That book inspired me, leaving me slightly disappointed by his subsequent fall from grace. I only picked this because I have Kindle Unlimited and I decided …

Book Review: Kindle Single Bumper Edition 2

Been working night shifts this week and my Kindle has been useful in passing the time. Particularly the Kindle Singles, quick short books which are usually easy to read and pass the time easily. I kicked off with some fiction in Consuelo Saah Baehr's Thinner Thighs in Thirty Years, a pretty decent read which details …