Usually I wait until the end of a book to make comments about it but The White Guard is one of the most enjoyable books I have read for a lo...

The Bookseller blog points to an interesting comment in the Forbes special report about the future of books with a conclusion that although...

It must be a real challenge for writers trying to describe the impact of a war on individuals and a city, a bit like painters trying to capt...

I put these words together for a piece I did for the magazine Poet's Letter but thought they might be worthy of a posting... As Christma...

The reason for reading Homer ’s Odyssey was simply because I thought it would make reading James Joyce’s Ulysses easier. Being honest it d...

After rooting around in the garage in a bid to clear things up and preventing books from being destroyed by the damp – some victims had to b...

I know the Odyssey is not everyone’s cup of tea but if you want to go through it quickly and get the benefit of the story without the need t...

A few years ago on a business trip to the US, Boston to be precise, a colleague of mine literally ran straight off the plane into a branch o...

Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol is a highly praised book that has a quote on the dust jacket from Hemingway saying its one of the top ten boo...

The blurb on the dust jacket of the book praises the description of Kiev describing it as the main character in the book but it takes until ...

At the risk of being accused of going on a bit let me post a short comment about the fuel thrown onto the celeb book debate today by The Tim...

Interesting email received this morning bearing in mind what is happening right now with the debate raging about lit bloggers and the value ...

This epic comes to an end and it has not been the experience I expected at all being much more accessible and enjoyable. You expect this to ...

An interesting point is made on The Bibliosphere about the legitimacy of the research done by those people who are attacking lit bloggers. T...

The First World War and revolution are such deep wells to draw on to provide inspiration for events and characters that it is almost impossi...