0467 | Life of Christ | Giovanni Papini
By 1921 when this was published, Papini was a man deeply passionate for Christ. This is apparent from the very introduction, let alone throughout the commentary he has written on…
0466 | A Line in the Sand | James Barr
What the chart of my progress below does not reveal is that the day I started this was in fact in May 2013 whereas I didn’t finish it, after a…
0457 | How Proust can Change your Life | Alain de Botton
As I’m tackling Proust’s mammoth In Search of Lost Time (ISOLT) this year (and currently over the halfway mark yeah!), when I saw this in a charity shop, I just…
0454 | Mark for Everyone | Tom Wright
Tom Wright has done it again with an extremely readable and very accessible translation and commentary on the Gospel according to Mark. I’m reading my way through the entire set…
0446 | The Enigma of Arrival | V. S. Naipaul
Once I’d settled into this, it was a beautiful read. Naipaul is a Nobel Laureate and so you expect that the prose will be challenging. But while A Bend in…
0444 | Private Eye Annual 2013 | Ian Hislop (Ed.)
I haven’t bought an annual since… oohh… probably since Beano days back in the early 80s. But having moved to a country where Private Eye is probably banned and would…
0440 | Matthew for Everyone | Tom Wright
I was looking for something that would simply take me through the Gospels of the New Testament, something without a fancy cover and a website full of Flash videos and…
0432 | I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Maya Angelou
This was and wasn’t what I expected. I think I underestimated the historical context and so failed to appreciate the significance of the story I was being told. I found…
0425 | I’m OK, You’re OK | Thomas Harris
About fourteen billion years ago when I was a young child, I remember my mother had this book on my parents’ bookshelf. I remember three things about it. Firstly, it…
0418 | The Great War for Civilisation | Robert Fisk
Like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, this is the agonising tale of humanity bravely told. Fisk displays the full range of his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Middle East, knowledge…
0417 | Mastering Arabic Script | Wightwick & Gaafar
In preparation for heading out to Saudi to work, I started to teach myself Arabic. First thing to master is the beautiful script. My local library had a copy of…
0415 | Henry VIII: King and Court | Alison Weir
There, in a charity shop, completely unblemished as in a proper bookshop, lay Weir’s encylopaedic description of one of the most magnificent courts of English royalty. And it was mine…
0414 | A Season in Mecca: Narrative of a Pilgrimage | Abdellah Hammoudi
Right, I think it’s time to share the news with the faithful few who follow this blog: I’m off to Saudi Arabia in a few weeks to work teaching English…
0411 | JavaScript: The Missing Manual | David Sawyer McFarland
Long, long ago, in a country far away, I attempted to teach myself JavaScript. I wasn’t really sure why I was doing it and that’s probably why I never finished…
0409 | Behind the Beautiful Forevers | Katherine Boo
Saw this reviewed in The Guardian and as it reminded me of Lapierre’s City of Joy kind of mixed in with A Fine Balance, I thought I couldn’t go wrong…
0404 | Storm of Steel | Ernst Jünger
Nice to finish off the year as I began it with a book I’m happy to rate as ‘excellent’. This is a remarkable book for so many reasons. Firstly, it’s…
0402 | Londonistan | Melanie Phillips
Context: Went for many long walks through Ropner Park in Stockton-on-Tees around the time I was reading this. Many hard decisions to make. REVIEW This is not a relaxing read….
0400 | In the Heart of the Seas | Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Context: Finished this off while lying on a new memory foam topper that I bought for our bed. Mmmmmemory foooooaaaaaammmmmm! REVIEW Here’s a strange book. I spent most of this…