Book Recommendations Archives

Gold, Gold, Gold! If that famous phrase has you bleeding from the ears, you’re probably not alone. But before you run to your Olympic proof, Penguin Classics lined bunker, I would like to point out the incredible parallels to be drawn between the world of literature of the Olympic Games. Just in time for the glory, the majesty and the spandex of the coming weeks here are 11 interesting fa... Read more

The only thing better than discovering a new series of books is realising that the author is not going to make you wait too long for the next instalment. Having been introduced to Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair novels earlier this year with Miles off Course, and then devouring books one and two with all the gusto of a confirmed historical fiction addict, I was pretty much ecstatic when I rea... Read more

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. What hogwash. To say we both share the same galaxy is an appallingly optimistic assumption. Since the dawn of time men have struggled to break free of the shackles of ordinary life. We want to be allowed to do things we enjoy, like getting drunk or chasing frogs. Just as women have yearned for space away from male madness so they can talk about Florence ... Read more

Drawn from Paradise is David Attenborough’s journey through the cultural history of the birds of paradise, one of the most exquisite and extravagant, colourful and intriguing families of birds. From the moment they were introduced to the European mind in the early sixteenth century, their unique beauty was recognised and commemorated in the first name that they were given – birds so... Read more

“Earth Platinum, the world’s largest atlas will start delivering from 20th February 2012. Earth Platinum is a comprehensive world atlas, featuring a world map for each of the thematic topics, Europe map, Canada map, USA map, Australia map, India map and more. The creator, Gordon Cheers, believes Earth Platinum will present the best national geographic map for every country in the wo... Read more

Moranthology ‘In How To be a Woman , I was limited to a single topic: women. Their hair, their shoes and their crushes on Aslan from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (which I KNOW to be universal). ‘However! In Moranthology – as the title suggests – I am set free to tackle THE REST OF THE WORLD: Ghostbusters, Twitter, caffeine, panic attacks, Michael Jackson’s memorial service, being ... Read more

Written by the Stones, curated by the Stones, and featuring the very best photographs and ephemera from and beyond their archives: here is the official, authorized story of fifty fantastic years of the greatest rock’n’roll band the world has ever known! “This is our story of fifty fantastic years. We started out as a blues band playing the clubs and more recently we’ve filled the la... Read more

I’ve loved fairy-tales from as far back as I can remember. Even before I could read, I always begged to be told fairy-tales, and the first book I remember reading for myself in English (I’m of French origin, so my first reading was in French), as a six year old, was a beautifully illustrated Little Golden Book which was a collection of three fairy-tales: Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, a... Read more

War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner – Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian.  What does a book do if not evoke feelings you didn’t know you had, bring them to the surface and make you examine them like an errant jigsaw piece? Before the brilliance of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Road, Cormac McCarthy shook the literatu... Read more

To me, the trouble with the vast majority of erotica is twofold: (i) the quality of the writing is far more disturbing than anything the protagonists might do to each other, literary merit not usually being the most lasting effect the author hopes to create; and (ii) there are, to put it bluntly, only so many ways tab A can be inserted into slot B – or even slots B, C and D, simultaneousl... Read more