Erin Britton
Erin Britton is a full-time PhD student and a part-time bookseller. Luckily, these two occupations have proved mutually beneficial – Erin has amassed an impressive library of Romani history books and could engage in a lengthy and detailed conversation on the matter should any customers ever actually ask her. While Erin’s first love is cult fiction, she also enjoys science fiction, graphic novels, children’s fantasy and adventure, and Tudor history books.
The Death of King Arthur, by Peter Ackroyd
Reviewed on December 6, 2010
In the wild old days of the world there was a king of England known as Uther Pendragon; he was a dragon in wrath as well as power. So goes the exciting, fitting beginning to The Death of King Arthur, Peter Ackroyd’s retelling of Sir Thomas Malory’s sublime Le Morte d’Arthur. Ackroyd’s version is certainly [...]
The Voronov Plot, by Yves Sente & Andre Juillard
Reviewed on November 26, 2010
International action men and noted moustache connoisseurs Captain Francis Blake and Professor Philip Mortimer are tackling nefarious intrigue once again in The Voronov Plot, the eighth of the Blake & Mortimer adventures to be translated into English although, technically, the fourteenth book chronologically. Blake and Mortimer were created by Edgar P. Jacobs and the dynamic [...]
Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman
Reviewed on November 23, 2010
Odd and the Frost Giants began life as one of those slim World Book Day volumes (available for £1 or free with a voucher given out at school) designed to encourage children to read and if ever there was a mythical adventure sure to fire the imaginations of reluctant young readers it is this. In [...]
Dr. Yes, by Bateman
Reviewed on November 8, 2010
The Bookseller With No Name (and still No Customers) has fuelled up the Mystery Machine and is once again ready to ride forth into the dark underbelly of Belfast and lay waste to any dangerous criminals who might be unfortunate enough to cross his path. As long as they’re not too dangerous, of course. Or [...]
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
Reviewed on November 5, 2010
Tolstoy’s War and Peace is an epic novel on several levels. First and foremost, it covers a massive geographical and historical panorama that is almost unrivalled in literature. Secondly and perhaps even more impressively, its scope encompasses momentous political events that impact on the whole of society [and indeed on societies in general] as well [...]
The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects, by Mike Mignola
Reviewed on October 18, 2010
Mike Mignola’s The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects begins, as many great things have, with Abraham Lincoln. The nefarious Emperor Zombie, undead occultist and former groundskeeper at Hyde Park, is up to his evil tricks again and so Honest Abe calls upon his top secret agent – the eponymous Screw-On Head – to [...]
Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales
Reviewed on October 9, 2010
There is a distinct lack of fairies in Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales. There are a fair amount of talking beasts, supernatural beings and things that do not conform to the laws of physics, but no actual fairies. Ditto beautiful princesses in peril. The term ‘fairy tale’ is used loosely here to describe “the [...]
The Aurora Teagarden Mysteries: Omnibus 1, by Charlaine Harris
Reviewed on October 6, 2010
The whole vampire porn craze has pretty much passed me by. My knowledge of shiny, angsty vampire gents and omnisexual mind-melded werewolves is decidedly limited and I certainly couldn’t tell a Southern Vampire™ from a Northern Soul Snatcher [patent pending]. It’s no surprise therefore that I knew of Charlaine Harris by reputation only. Although currently [...]
The Humbling, by Philip Roth
Reviewed on October 4, 2010
Reclusive, introverted author Philip Roth is reclusive, extroverted sexagenarian actor Simon Axler in The Humbling, the latest book from the elder statesman of American literature. Axler had been the finest stage actor of his generation but, after giving disastrous performances as Macbeth and Prospero at the Kennedy Center, realised that his acting mojo had forsaken [...]
Snobbery with Violence, by M.C. Beaton
Reviewed on September 29, 2010
M.C. Beaton must be one of the hardest-working authors writing in the mystery genre. She is most famous for having written twenty-six Hamish MacBeth detective novels and twenty-one Agatha Raisin mysteries but, it turns out, has also found time to write four historical whodunits. The Edwardian Murder Mystery series was originally published under Beaton’s actual [...]
The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight, by Jenny Valentine
Reviewed on September 8, 2010
Cassiel Roadnight has just been discovered at a hostel for homeless teenagers in London. Cassiel is sixteen years old; he has brown hair and blue eyes and is quite tall for his age. He was last seen by his family at the Hay on Fire festival on November 5th two years previously. Despite having been [...]
Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer, by Wesley Stace
Reviewed on September 6, 2010
While Misfortune was a darkly gothic novel involving gender-bending amongst the landed gentry and By George was in turn a melancholy exploration of ventriloquism and the decline of the great British variety show tradition, with Charles Jessold Considered as a Murderer, his third novel, Wesley Stace proves once again to be a master of originality [...]
Transformers: Exodus, by Alex Irvine
Reviewed on August 23, 2010
The 1980s were a great time for cartoon lovers with such legendary series as Transformers, Thundercats, Battle of the Planets, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and He-Man being aired for the first time. It was also, undoubtedly, a great time for those involved in toy sales and merchandising. Transformers is often held up as being the [...]
The Red Queen, by Philippa Gregory
Reviewed on August 19, 2010
Philippa Gregory’s The Cousins’ War series is set during a particularly turbulent period of English history, a period now popularly described as the Wars of the Roses when cousin fought against cousin, brother fought against brother, and dynasties were forged and destroyed. The first book in the series, The White Queen, followed Elizabeth Woodville as [...]
The Children of the Lost, by David Whitley
Reviewed on August 14, 2010
David Whitley’s The Midnight Charter introduced readers to Agora, an ancient city-state where everything is for sale – goods, thoughts, emotions, and memories – even children. In this insular environment where money does not exist and trading and contracts are the only way to survive, successful merchants wield ultimate power, plague spreads rapidly throughout the [...]
The Dream Thief, by Catherine Webb
Reviewed on July 30, 2010
The Dream Thief by Catherine Webb is the fourth outing for former Special Constable and rather reluctant hero Horatio Lyle. As the industrial revolution races on across England, Horatio Lyle wishes nothing more than to devote himself to assisting modernity and the forward motion of the Empire through his scientific experiments and his passion for [...]
The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel, by Greg Keyes
Reviewed on July 14, 2010
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a single-player RPG [translation: role-playing game] created by Bethesda Game Studios for Windows PCs, the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. Hugely successful and the recipient of numerous gaming awards [does Patrick Moore in his guise as the GamesMaster still award golden joysticks?], Oblivion revolves around players’ attempts to [...]
The Lost City of Z, by David Grann
Reviewed on July 5, 2010
The inspiration behind Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World, Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett was among the last of a long line of British gentlemen explorers. Born in 1867, Fawcett was a former spy, an archaeologist by trade and an Indiana Jones style adventurer by design. He was already the veteran of several expeditions into [...]
Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud, by Andrew Lane
Reviewed on June 30, 2010
Aside from the dancing, homicidal pastries, Barry Levinson’s 1985 film Young Sherlock Holmes was just plain great. Yes it had Holmes and John Watson meeting at boarding school (The cries of Sherlockians ring out “Not canon! Not canon!”) and involved an hallucinogenic poison dart spitting Egyptian cult with a secret pyramid headquarters under London’s Docklands, [...]
Couch Fiction, by Philippa Perry and Junko Graat
Reviewed on June 7, 2010
Written by Philippa Perry and illustrated by Junko Graat, Couch Fiction is an innovative new graphic novel that aims to give readers an insight into psychotherapy by offering both the therapist’s and the client’s prospective of the therapy process. Although none of the characters in Couch Fiction actually exist, in a note to the reader [...]
Transmetropolitan: The New Scum, by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
Reviewed on June 5, 2010
Transmetroplitan, Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson’s excellent post-cyberpunk comic series, chronicles the exploits of infamous renegade gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem. After five years of effective retirement spent living as a long-haired hermit in a compound in the mountains, Spider Jerusalem managed to squander the substantial advance that he had been given by his publisher. Needless [...]
Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Reviewed on May 31, 2010
As far as cultural icons go, Tarzan is right up there with other literary behemoths of roughly the same vintage such as Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and Superman. First swinging his way in the popular consciousness via a pulp-fiction magazine story in 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan has gone on to be the focus of twenty-five [...]
Wilson, by Daniel Clowes
Reviewed on May 27, 2010
A new graphic novel from Daniel Clowes, author of the excellent Ghost World and David Boring among others, is always a big deal. As one of the most obviously “literary” writers working in the comics medium, Clowes always delivers sympathetic characters and bizarrely believable storylines with his trademark mix of superficial kitsch and everyday grotesque. [...]
The Ambassador’s Mission, by Trudi Canavan
Reviewed on May 24, 2010
The Ambassador’s Mission is the first volume in the Traitor Spy Trilogy, the sequel to Trudi Canavan’s phenomenally popular Black Magician Trilogy. That being said, some background information on the fantastical world created by Canavan in her earlier novels would probably be useful for those who have not read the proceeding trilogy. The Black Magician [...]
DC Versus Marvel, by Peter David et al
Reviewed on May 18, 2010
The competition between DC and Marvel Comics, the two behemoths of the comic book industry, is legendary. While DC and Marvel Comics are different both stylistically and in the approach that they take to continuity in their respective universes, both companies are famous and much-loved due to the enduring popularity of their superheroes and their [...]
Blonde Bombshell, by Tom Holt
Reviewed on April 30, 2010
On a planet where a dog’s best friend is his man, the director of the Institute for Interstellar Exploration is taking Spot for a walk. Tom Holt is truly a master at subverting the normal and with Blonde Bombshell he has unleashed yet another deliciously twisted comic incendiary on the science fiction loving population. On [...]
The Owl Killers, by Karen Maitland
Reviewed on April 26, 2010
England, 1321. The tiny, isolated Norfolk village of Ulewic is the setting for an epic battle between knowledge and superstition, ancient beliefs and modern understanding, Gods and demons. The peasants of Ulewic have lived under a cloud of fear for generations as their lives and livelihoods were presided over by the hardhearted lord of the [...]
Lost, by Gregory Maguire
Reviewed on April 20, 2010
Having achieved great success with his reimagining of both The Wizard of Oz in The Wicked Years series and Cinderella in Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, with Lost Gregory Maguire offers a ghost story evoking A Christmas Carol with a side order of Ripperology. Winifred Rudge is a morose and rather prickly American author who [...]
White is for Witching, by Helen Oyeyemi
Reviewed on April 14, 2010
When The Icarus Girl, her debut novel, was released, Helen Oyeyemi had just turned twenty and, having written her book in secret when she should have been studying for her A-levels, was hailed as a literary prodigy. The Icarus Girl, a novel about a girl growing up between cultures and colours, was a commercial as [...]
The Bones of Avalon, by Phil Rickman
Reviewed on April 12, 2010
Generally speaking, Doctor John Dee has not been remembered fondly by posterity. Born in 1527, John Dee was one of the greatest minds of his generation. Famous during his lifetime as a mathematician, astrologer, astronomer, navigator and occultist, Dee was also a tutor and trusted advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. In fact, the date for [...]
Preacher, Book 2, by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
Reviewed on April 6, 2010
Jesse Custer was a down-and-out preacher struggling to spread the good word in Annville, Texas when a catastrophic supernatural incident flattened his church, killed his entire congregation and left Custer himself possessed by an ambiguously demonic creature known as Genesis. As the product of an unnatural and unauthorised relationship between an angel and a demon, [...]
Changes, by Jim Butcher
Reviewed on April 1, 2010
Harry Dresden, wisecracking private eye and the only professional wizard listed in the Chicago phonebook, has never been particularly lucky in love. His first paramour Elaine Mallory faked her own death after going dark side and almost succeeding in helping former mentor Justin DuMorne to enthral Drseden while, more recently, Anastasia Luccio, Captain of the [...]
Enchanted Glass, by Diana Wynne Jones
Reviewed on March 3, 2010
Probably best known for her Chrestomanci series and for the novel Howl’s Moving Castle (which was adapted into an excellent film by Japan’s Studio Ghibli), Diana Wynne Jones is truly a titan amongst British fantasy authors, having published more than forty books and influenced hugely successful fellow authors such as JK Rowling and Philip Pullman. [...]
Fool, by Christopher Moore
Reviewed on February 22, 2010
Even if the mere thought of a new offering from Christopher Moore, author of such hilariously satirical novels as Bloodsucking Fiends and Island of the Sequined Love Nun, isn’t enough to set readers’ imaginations whirling, the brilliant blurb on the back of Fool is sure to do the trick: This is a bawdy tale. Herein [...]
The Affair of the Necklace, by Edgar P. Jacobs
Reviewed on February 15, 2010
Edgar P. Jacobs was a friend and collaborator of the famous Belgian writer and artist Herge and the adventures of Blake and Mortimer were in fact serialised in the first issue of Tintin magazine in 1946. Although surprising at the time, that first story, The Secret of the Swordfish, proved more popular than the Tintin [...]
The Saga of Swamp Thing Bk. 2, by Alan Moore, John Totleben and Steve Bissette
Reviewed on February 10, 2010
When Alan Moore took over DC’s then failing Swamp Thing series in 1984 he swept aside the mythology that had been built up since Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson had begun the first regular Swamp Thing series back in 1972 and instead firmly rooted the character into the circumstances and environment envisioned in House of [...]
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective, by David Stuart Davies
Reviewed on January 26, 2010
David Stuart Davies is certainly a very brave man, for with The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective he has produced a radical re-imagining of the Sherlockian world of Arthur Conan Doyle that is sure to polarize fans of the world’s greatest consulting detective. Sherlock Holmes, as created by Conan Doyle, has inspired [...]
Walking the Dog, by David Hughes
Reviewed on January 22, 2010
When illustrator David Hughes approached his fiftieth birthday, he turned himself in at his local surgery for a mid-life MOT and was not overwhelmingly surprised to be told by his GP that he was drinking far too much and exercising far too little. Although both of these slothful habits suited Hughes down to the ground, [...]
Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life: Volume 1, by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Reviewed on January 19, 2010
With Bryan Lee O’Malley’s pop culture venerating Scott Pilgrim saga coming to an end in July with the release of the sixth volume and a film version starring everyman du jour Michael Cera out sometime this summer, the first five volumes in the series are each being given a much deserved reprint over the next [...]
An Elegy for Easterly, by Petina Gappah
Reviewed on January 15, 2010
Taken individually as well as when assembled collectively, the short stories that comprise Petina Gappah’s debut collection, An Elegy for Easterly, offer a powerful lament for the Zimbabwe of Gappah’s childhood, a Zimbabwe that has all but disappeared behind the tragedies of totalitarianism, hyperinflation, corruption, crippling poverty, misogyny and an unchecked AIDS epidemic. Although, perhaps [...]
Footnotes in Gaza, by Joe Sacco
Reviewed on January 13, 2010
In the spring of 2001 war-reportage comics pioneer Joe Sacco was in the Gaza Strip with journalist Chris Hedges working on an assignment for Harper’s magazine. The pair were working on chronicling how the Palestinians in the town of Khan Younis were coping during the early months of the Second Intifada against the Israeli occupation [...]
B Is for Beer, by Tom Robbins
Reviewed on January 5, 2010
Apparently, B Is for Beer got its start in life from a bet. Not an actual bet per se, but rather a bet featured in a cartoon featured in a newspaper that featured in Tom Robbins’ reading pile. The cartoon involved a publisher and a writer walking into a bar with the publisher remarking, “No, [...]
The Toymaker, by Jeremy De Quidt
Reviewed on December 22, 2009
It’s fairly common knowledge that Frankenstein didn’t end well for the Monster. In fact, tinkering about with nature is rarely seen as a force for good in literature. It’s no surprise then that the brooding, gothic atmosphere that haunts the pages from the very beginning of Jeremy De Quidt’s debut novel The Toymaker is an [...]
Sandman: The Dream Hunters, by Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell
Reviewed on December 17, 2009
Along with Alan Moore’s Watchman and Frank Miller’s Sin City, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is one of the most popular, as well as the most critically acclaimed, comic book series of all time. With a distinct lack of burly men in tights and voluptuous women in neon spandex jumpsuits, The Sandman was in the vanguard [...]
Monster Republic, by Ben Horton
Reviewed on December 15, 2009
Monster Republic by Ben Horton is the first book in a new science-fiction/techno-thriller action series for young adults. Full of explosions, weaponry, gadgets, battles, fury and outsider kids fighting to save the world, Monster Republic is bound to be a big hit in the difficult Boys 12+ market and in particular with fans of Anthony [...]
The Passport, by Herta Muller
Reviewed on November 30, 2009
Although Nadirs and The Land of Green Plums have now been reissued in English, when Herta Muller won the Nobel Prize for Literature in October this year, only The Passport was available for monoglots wishing to gain a flavour of her work. Fortunately, it seems to be a fine example of her recurring themes and [...]
The Day of the Jack Russell, by Bateman
Reviewed on November 19, 2009
The Bookseller With No Name is back. Since he put his own first name to rest, Bateman’s quirky, black comedy crime novels, featuring often unwilling protagonists who, much to their indignation, found themselves thrust into all manner of peculiar situations, enjoyed a strong cult following and earned him a great deal of critical praise (the [...]
The Wisdom of Dead Men, by Oisin McGann
Reviewed on November 16, 2009
Set in an alternative Victorian Steampunk world, Oisin McGann’s The Wisdom of Dead Men is the second thrilling instalment in his Wildenstern family saga. The first Wildenstern novel, Ancient Appetites, introduced a world where Queen Victoria is still present and correct and reigning over Britain and Ireland, but powerful business empires, one of the most [...]
Generation A, by Douglas Coupland
Reviewed on November 9, 2009
Generation X, a tale of youth in revolt against an increasingly consumerist society, was Douglas Coupland’s hugely successful first novel and he has returned, with moderate success, to the same style of framed narrative for his most recent offering, Generation A. Generation X had such a massive cultural impact that its title became a much [...]
Notwithstanding, by Louis de Bernieres
Reviewed on November 5, 2009
Miss Marple always maintained that her phenomenal capacity for solving complex crimes was down to the fact that she lived in a village; being in close proximity to a fairly small group of people in an insular community apparently having provided her with seemingly infinite examples of the negative side of human nature. No matter [...]
-
The Bookgeeks Interview
Blaine Harden
Blaine Harden is an author and journalist who reports for PBS Frontline and contributes to The Economist. He worked for The Washington Post as a correspondent in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as in New York and Seattle. He was also a national correspondent for The New York Times and writer for the Times Magazine.
-
Latest Competition
Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy: win books and signed posters
It’s a busy time for Irvine Welsh: not only has he got a new book out, Skagboys, a prequel to his famous and acclaimed Trainspotting, but his 1997 novel Ecstasy has been made in to a major new film, on general release from today. It’s a twisted tale that explores the euphoric highs and the [...]
Latest Bookbitz reviews
