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Generously written biography of the singer from Kidderminster who caught the eye of Jimmy Page, who would go on to become a golden god of the rock firmament. There’s so much more to the Robert Plant story than just Led Zeppelin, and this book admirably captures that – whilst of course a big part of…
I’ve seen the comedy show which this book was based on 1.4 times (long story – but the 0.4 was a manful effort at putting on a performance despite the best efforts of the performer’s gastrointestinal tract). Andrew O’Neill can be described as many things – but “passionate about heavy metal” is definitely foremost in…
2nd instalment in the Dave vs. the Monsters trilogy – fresh from saving the world, this instalment sees Dave revelling in his newfound adulation in Vegas, when The Horde make themselves known once again. You’re not gonna learn anything reading these books – but they are bloody good fun.
M’colleague Billy went to the launch of this book, which he said was “the most Stewart Lee thing ever” – consisting of the author standing on a riverboat bookshop on a West London canal, reading excerpts from the book through a PA system to the gathered crowd on the shore. I find Stewart Lee’s columns…
Proper ludicrous fantasy/fiction here from JB – a deep-drilling oil rig somehow taps through to a banished demon horde civilisation, and a seemingly un-redemptionworthy everyman (Dave Hooper) finds himself imbued with superhero powers to combat them. Plenty of military operations & jargon, a rich fantasy demon-world setting, and all told with JB’s signature approachability &…
Following his Blackadder biography, Jem Roberts dips into detail on obvious heroes of his – Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie – in this examination of their comic partnership leading up to and focusing on “A Bit of Fry & Laurie”. It’s apparent that there was a great deal more to this story than I’d have…
Pete Brown goes into a detailed dive into the ingredients of beer in this piece following his wanderings around the world, where he tries to understand different global interpretations of beer and the disparate endpoints that will take you, from what’s nominally a simple list of the same ingredients. I love the way Brown writes:…
Bit of a baffling one this – it takes the chronological run of Star Wars (or, if you’re hung up on such things, “Episode IV: A New Hope”) and then each chapter of this book is a short story written from the point of view of a bit-part character. A sort of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern…
John Birmingham’s latest dramatic fiction, told in a similar style to his Axis of Time trilogy but this time the setting is a future space colonial civilisation, where aristocratic family corporations run planetary systems, and they come under attack from a deep space movement of insurrectionists thought previously banished from the galaxy. Birmingham’s writing is…
The trouble with trying to be objective about Geoffrey Robertson is that I can’t do it. The man’s an absolute legend and hero. This autobiography covers his entire life to date, from growing up in suburban Sydney – to the move to England via his Rhodes Scholarship – through to his burgeoning legal career and…