Be Excellent To Each Other

9.Disaster, Inc by Caimh McDonnell

A private detective uncovers a massive investment scam.

It's been a while since a novel's made me laugh out loud in a public space but this tale of crime and conspiracy had me doing so several times. Great fun, and now I'm keen to read more of this series.

10.) Decoy - Dudley Pope
Mostly a fun WWII naval adventure, scattered with bits of annoying exposition and technical details that suggest Mr Pope had no confidence in his audience's ability to understand 1940s cryptography. Pope apparently spent 2 weeks in a lifeboat after being torpedoed in WWII, and you get the impression that some of this story was a bit close to home for him. He does not like the Board of Trade, and has very strong feelings regarding life jacket design and safety inspections.

11.) Paths of Glory: The French Army, 1914-18 - Anthony Clayton
A short book that covers all of World War I, so it's pretty high level. Your poor old poilus had a rougher time of it in the trenches than his Tommy counterpart, with more politics and worse supplies and support, as well as having to wear red trousers and use a crummy rifle. It's made me want to read more about the French mutinies, as it seems the whole army wasn't that far from just falling apart - not altogether surprising, seeing how much shit the entire French army had been through.

10. A History of the World in 47 Borders by John Elledge
Short blog style chapters on various accidents of history. One of those to dip into when you're bored on the bus or toilet.

Segued neatly, however, to ...

11. The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes

Part travelogue about the author's adventures ignoring "private property"/"no trespassing" signs, part history of restrictions on land access in England, and part cry for a saner system.
He skilfully intertwines these elements and gets quite poetic when describing the landscapes he's visiting. For anyone with even a passing interest in the great outdoors this is well worth a read, even if it'll frequently make you angry about aristocrats.

I've read a book! It's called Triceratops and Bottoms. It's a niche genre of science fiction I hadn't yet explored: dinosaur erotica.

Basically, a lady travels through time using a newly invented time machine. Brilliantly, and this is the best way of stopping the "Let's kill Hitler" issue, she can only travel to the Jurassic era.

There she bangs dinosaurs. And they bang her. At the climax (ho ho -ed) she brings a rich friend along for the ride (ho ho - ed).

Had it not been for the time travel rule it would have been a waste of £2.96. Also, I don't think all of the dinosaurs she bangs were in the Jurassic era.

Well that sounds disturbing.

1. Tom Holt - The Portable Door

I’ve been looking for some authors that I haven’t read before and I’d seen some recommendations for Tom Holt. Looking through the list of over 70 items he’s written, I went for The Portable Door as it’s the first in a series and the reviews I’d seen were mostly positive e.g. SFX one line review, “The best similes since Douglas Adams.’”

From page 1 I wasn’t keen on his style. On page 3 I found the first of the supposedly 'best' similes.

“But he stayed where he was, while the thin girl excavated the talons of her left hand, like Carter and Caernarvon questing for dead Pharaohs.”

“Oh, it’s obvious what you’re thinking,” she said, “from that soupy expression on your face, and the way your shoulders are sagging. Like someone sat down in front of a radiator and you’re beginning to melt.”

He couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he said, ‘Oh,’ instead. She pulled the grin back into a little frown, like someone reigning in an unruly terrier, and scratched under her right armpit.

I’d have to say ridiculous rather than anything comparable to Adams.

And there were many of sections with lots of words but nothing actually being said, particularly in the early chapters.

I found the characterisation shallow, with too many characters introduced in quick succession.

The conversations were often inane and it felt like he was trying to hit a word count rather than engage the reader.

The Portable Door in question didn’t appear until around half way through the book, by which time I was struggling to keep going.

I was considering giving up on it, but pushed on to see if it got any better and if there was a satisfactory ending, but I found it a let down.

I thought the plot was a mess and didn’t achieve its potential.

My overall feeling is that it was like a novel for adults written by Enid Blyton.

But he’s obviously popular, so maybe he was over hyped and the basic problem for me is his style. But I have no plan to read any more from him.

I think I read The Portable Door a while back, but I have absolutely no memory of it, and have never read another Tom Holt book. I guess that kinda sums up my feelings on that.



12.) Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett
Proper old-school, hard boiled PI shenanigans. A nameless Dick rocks up at a crime-ridden town to help a rich man find his son's murderer and then gets sucked into a brutal turf war. He plays each side off against the other, fixing boxing matches, solving various other murders and everyone ends up dead. I liked it, it's not sophisitcated or clever but rattles along and there's non-stop action.

3. Brutal - Iwain Thomas
4. Trails and Tribulations. The Running adventures - Susie Chan
5. Boy in a China Shop - Keith Brymer Jones

A bit of holiday reading, a few autobiographies. Did not quite finish my 4th.

13.) The Last Crusade - The Palestine Campaign in the First World War - Anthony Bruce
A history of a lesser-known bit of WWI. Interesting to compare it to my other WWI book a few weeks back which was almost entirely focused on the Western Front. Palestine was interesting because so much of what happened was constrained by supply issues, especially the water supply. The British also managed what they had always hoped for but never managed in France - a break-through and then using the cavalry to exploit their initial victory. A somewhat dry and fact-y book, hindered slightly by the fact that a lot of places that featured in the campaign had similar sounding names, and the maps in the book weren't quite up to snuff.

6. Relentless: Secrets of the sporting elite - Alistair Brownlee
7. The Raven Episode 1-3 - Tobey Alexander




The chapters are really shoer and John is a sarcastic, kinda why I like him

12. Brazil by Michael Palin

The book of his 2012 travelogue, not the Terry Gilliam film.

Picked this up from the library a few days after a pub conversation with a Brazilian friend in which I demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge about the geography of this continent-sized country.
Palin darts from place to place, goes on various junkets, meets local celebrities, and just so happens to get involved with every festival and ritual.
For getting an overview of the diversity of the country's landscape and people, it's easy and acceptable enough but I think I would be better off watching the show. I also found some of Palin's comments about women a little patronising and awkward at times, showing I think his age and background. There's also a little too much of "look how happy the poor people are compared to us wealthy types".

Loosely related but the Lost City of Z by David Grann is an astonishing retelling of the expeditions to explore the Amazon and ongoing abuses around the rubber industry.

14.) Cause for Alarm - Eric Ambler
Quite a fun little spy novel, written in a jaunty, sort-of-PG Wodehouse style. Interesting as it was written in 1938 - there was obviously something about to kick off, but no one was totally sure what was actually about to happen. English fellow goes to Italy for a job and instantly gets in WAY over his head, then has to escape to Yugoslavia!

13. Exterminate! Regenerate! by John Higgs

The history and wider cultural meaning of Doctor Who.

Some very interesting insights, especially about where the Doctor fits into folklore and the author's view that the Time Lords represent the interferences and occasional hostility of the BBC.
Fast paced, and I never realised how complicated Patrick Troughton's personal life was.

14. Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll

Why did the IRA attempt to assassinate Thatcher? How did they go about it? Did they succeed?

Reads like a true crime potboiler but no less engrossing because of that.
There are some clunky bitsthat an editor should have caught (do we really need a sentence about why the Intercity 125 was so-called?) but a fascinating story.

15.) The Mint - T. E. Lawrence
Poor old Lawrence of Arabia didn't handle fame well and wasn't too stable to begin with, TBH. So he joins the RAF under an assumed name, at the very bottom, and then write a a book about it. He's a very good writer, is somewhat bonkers and is very annoyed about the way the RAF depot is run.

8. Can't Hurt Me, Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds - David Goggins (audiobook)


Not a bad book, the man has done a lot, but his ego... just wow

Oh, I think I've heard about him. He shouts a lot, right? Like "JUST FUCKING GET IT DONE" and "I WELCOME THE HARD PARTS"?

oh yes, that is the fella. As you can imagine, his audio book is a lot of shouting and swearing. A bit like top 5 face off

I think you have to shout "STAY HARD!" a lot after you read it.

I think that might be a different type of book.

15. John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie
Biography of the songwriting duo that uses events from their lives and their song lyrics to show how deep the bromance went.
Hits the usual beats but an interesting angle.

16. Ma'am Darling by Craig Brown
This is first of his biographies and as such suffers a bit as he hasn't yet perfected the form.
Still very funny, but gets a bit tiresome to complete as both the subject (Princess Margaret) and her circle were such tedious, vapid people.
I did like the fantasy chapter (often the weakest point of his books) imagining her being married to Jeremy Thorpe.

The Yellow Admiral - Patrick O'Brian. Naval adventures. I had to use a dictionary a little too much to enjoy the romp fully, but it does what it sets out to.

The Mountain in the Sea - Ray Nayler. Humans discover octopuses are intelligent. Nicely other worldly, thoughtful rather than exciting science fiction that didn't quite grab me.

Back Blast - Mark Greaney. The Gray Man is lethal, and keeps on being lethal. I'm reading these along with the Orphan X books, and would like to see a crossover that ended both. Competent fiction.

Rogue - James Swallow. Also a man hero book, with the slight difference that the lead was originally just a support worker and then got thrust to the front. That conceit made the first book very exciting, but it's less exciting by this one - no.4, perhaps?

Before we forget kindness - Toshikazu Kawaguchi. By drinking a cup of coffee in a certain cafe while in a particular seat, you can go back in time. You stay in place, and have till the coffee gets cold (the title of the first book - this is the fifth. Repetitive but with a nice dose of humanity - easy reading.

The Satsuma Complex - Bob Mortimer. National treasure and loony mind writes comic crime thriller. Funny, good.

Circe - Madeline Miller. A reimagining of Circe, daughter of Helios, who doesn't seem to be a god like the others but discovers some power. Lovely telling of the story, unless Greek Myth bores you in which case so will this.

Sea Change - Robert Goddard. Good thriller, the story of a debtridden mapmaker who is entrusted with delivering a package for his patron, as people wriggle away from the after effects of the South Sea bubble. Interesting setting for skulduggery.

Damascus Station - David McCluskey. Set in Syria, CIA agents working as the regime works around them. Unmemorable but I enjoyed it when I read it.

Ticket to Ride - Tom Chesshyre. Around the world on 49 unusual train journeys. A neat conceit, and probably fine in its original blog form, but it doesn't make a book. Some bits are reasonable, but overall there's too much effort to find something to say while having a lovely time travelling. Produced to order rather than because he felt he had to.

A Curious Career - Lynn Barber. Known for in depth interviews in the Sunday papers, when that was a big deal, and Barber's story was also the basis of An Education (book and then film) so she's had an interesting life. She really doesn't want to be the story, but drags lots of material from her life interviewing people, and this is a great read.