General Fiction Books
Walk into my house and glance at my bookshelves and you will find an eclectic mix of books. My favourite genres are represented heavily in science fiction and fantasy, but I also have loads of crime, history, biographies and general fiction....
Fair warning, this isn't going to be a normal review, it's the first one I've written post-covid and is much more personal than usual.
Some years ago, my father started reading again. Previous to that he hadn't read much for the last few decades outside of Haynes manuals and instruction...
Punk was a short-lived musical genre and if you have listened to some of it you can probably tell why. It was raw, edgy and loud, but most of the songs were not that great and it was more about attitude than being able to sing. The songs that you may like from that genre may...
Freedom is just chaos, with better lighting
I have read a lot of crime fiction and even as a fan you can be critical of how similar they can be. The formats and storylines can bog down into only a few basic formulas. In a less accomplished author this can lead to a bland book that fades quickly in the memory, but this...
My partner and I went through a stage of watching only noir films. Many of them felt the same, but some stood out. The French films had an effortless style, Barbara Stanwyck was always amazing, and one film was just a little bit insane. That film...
The noir genre has an inherent problem, it has the feel of the 1940s and 1950s. You imagine black and white films, men in fedoras and women with cascading red locks. The lack of technology forced the central gumshoe to walk the streets and knock together heads to gather the...
Offer me a time machine and I would travel no further back than the 1980s. This would allow me to place loads of bets on sporting events I know the results to and invest in Apple Computers. You would not see me travelling hundreds of years into the future or the past, are you mad? The 1980s were...
The movie industry is seen as all glitz and glamour, but just beneath the surface Donald E. Westlake suggests that it is made up of lies and even murder. What type of person is drawn to an industry where you pretend to be fake – fake people. In Double Feature, two of Westlake’s...
Freedom is just chaos, with better lighting
When you think of a Sherlock Holmes do you imagine a novel or a short story? The reality is that many tales that we know from Arthur Conan Doyle are from his short stories and it is more the modern reimagining of the character that have taken the longer form. James Lovegrove is a leading modern...
On occasion I see adverts on TV encouraging me to visit America. A collection of Hollywood and TV stars will speak the sights, sounds, tastes and smells that are distinctly American. It seems glamourous, it seems fun. However, when I read crime books set in America or sit down to watch the...
Sherlock Holmes is long dead, but this has not stopped the character’s legacy from living on. Sherlock was incredibly popular in his Victorian heyday, but the number of TV shows, films and books still being made today suggests that this popularity is still the case. Taking the concept of...
There is nothing quite like a caper movie. A bunch of loveable rogues essentially breaking the law, but it is ok as they are up against even worse rogues. It is not a genre that I have found in a book format too often, can you capture the humour and pace required to make the ride an exciting...
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