Books of the Month and more!

This is a collection of my blogposts about books. When I collated these there were a lot more posts than I realised!

Books of the Month

In 2023 I started blogging a book of the month. (I don't always manage it every month, but I try!)

November 2024: A History of Heavy Metal by Andrew O'Neill

October 2024: British Rail by Christian Wolmar

September 2024: The Power (Naomi Alderman); Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut); The Boys from Brazil (Ira Levin)

August 2024: Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway); Coming Up For Air (George Orwell); The Stepford Wives (Ira Levin)

July 2024: Children of Memory and Lords of Uncreation (both by Adrian Tchaikovsky)

June 2024: Existential Physics by Sabine Hossenfelder

March 2024: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley)

February 2024: Independent Nation: Should Wales Leave the UK? by Will Hayward

January 2024: Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky

November 2023: Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

October 2023On 1984 (DJ Taylor); Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell)

September 2023: Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper

March 2023: The Grieving Brain by Mary Frances O'Connor

January 2023: The Age of Earthquakes by Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist


Selected book reviews from before 2023...

February 2020 - The Roman Cult of Mithras by Manfred Clauss

All the Books I Read in 2016 wrapped up in one post

August 2016 - Godless Morality by Richard Holloway

March 2016 - Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (spoiler: I really, really disliked the character of Anna Karenina and made no attempt to hide it in this post!)

The non-fiction books I read in 2015

Most of the fiction books I read in 2015

January 2013 - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

September 2012 - Two Books About Myths (Ragnarok by AS Byatt and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman)

November 2010 - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

September 2010 - The Children's Book by A.S.Byatt


Other posts about books


Mining the myths - modern takes on the Norse pantheon [2021]

Categorising "speculative fiction" [2022] - some thoughts on the genre

Kurt Vonnegut's still salient 55 year-old observation on the American Poor [2024]

Inside jokes in the Moomin books [2007] - my theory about the inhabitants of Moominvalley

In Search of Salinger [2011] - when I got a bit obsessed with JD Salinger; this post also includes a discussion of Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks

Books where characters go exploring ruins [2016] - specifically, The Lord of the Rings and The Magicians Nephew

Telegraphed plot twists [2008] - another post that references Iain M. Banks

My Five Star Books [2013] - the books I thought were worthy of 5 stars between 2002 and 2013

More Five Star Books [2016]

Some church history books aimed at kids annoyed me [2016]

Bookshelf juxtapositions [2021] - a silly post

An older bookshelf juxtaposition [2010] - another silly post


George Orwell

On 1984 by DJ Taylor and Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell [2023]

Coming Up For Air was one of three novels I reviewed in August 2024

George Orwell's gifts to the English lexicon [2007]

An excerpt from Burmese Days by George Orwell that I found hilarious [2016]

Three quotes from Coming Up For Air [2024]

Lots of companies have started publishing Nineteen Eighty-Four [2024]

Encountering George Orwell in Wetherspoons [2024] 


Douglas Coupland

The six novels by Douglas Coupland that I read in 2015

Extracts from Life After God by Douglas Coupland [2015]

The machine future according to Douglas Coupland [2021]

"Smupidity" - another idea from Douglas Coupland [2021]

The Age of Earthquakes [2023]

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