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Sorry John… I found this book, whilst small, incredibly annoying. I get that it was meant to be a simple little positive idea – and arguably one that’s very helpful to a lot of people. But how does that make a whole book? The book’s notable for being short and cheerful, which is something its…
Absolute belter of a first novel from one of the “QI Elves” – a dystopian future novel that stands up to John Birmingham levels of excellent, set in a world where the Earth has stopped rotating. Very difficult to put down; I found I finished this in the space of a week. Loved it.
Tricky to know how to describe this book… and I daresay it doesn’t really matter. It’s like a transcription of a really long Nat’s What I Reckon video, in which he tells his life story and philosophy on life. I really like the guy. I’m delighted that he’s found success with those cooking videos. Publishing…
As someone who’s not a software architect, I figured this book about what software architects need to know might open my eyes to the sorts of things I might need to know about if I were to ever want to pursue becoming a software architect. The catch is, it was published in 2009 – so…
A detailed yet slightly austere/opaque history of the whisky industry in Campbeltown from around 1769 through to the early 2000s, covering the burgeoning scene to its production peak with the 29 active distilleries in 1835 and the subsequent decline following industry rationalisation and war to its current population of 3. Well, 2 and a half,…
I love seeing Gary Delaney at work – a slightly battered comedy ‘everyman’ with a hint of wrong’un, he fires out puns and stupid one-liners like a sort of giggling bullshit howitzer, and I can’t help but get caught up in the joy of it. This is his first book, and bar some slightly iffy…
More a pamphlet than a book – I was intrigued into this by seeing it on a friend’s “recently read” feed. It’s a 60-ish page essay on the character of Alexander Boris DePfeffel Johnson, and given his temperament and past history of lying and criminal-adjacent activity & disrespect for the rule of law it simply…
A companion to his excellent Whisky manual, but geared at The Sugar Spirit – Broom-san deploys his mixer-led grading system to inform notes on a load of different styles of rums, and paves the way to educate on different styles & processes for what turns out is a VASTLY complex territory for knowledge. And people…
An autobiography posthumously discovered in an attic, of one of the British comedy scene’s most distinctive enigmas. Though he died incredibly early at 48 his life was packed with more living than most people – my head was spinning at having read of his adventures dossing in parks, touring the country performing, working in Paris,…
One could be forgiven for feeling a little bleak about one’s adopted country on the face of reading this – if it weren’t abundantly clear that the author had started with THOUSANDS of similar incidents and narrowed it down to a more digestible 52. Coupled with the barrage of human dickishness I’ve been mainlining from…