Books

Here are the books that have inspired this site:

JG Ballard – The Kindness of Women

A messy continuation of Empire of the Sun but based in the UK in the post-war era.

Stephen King – On Writing

Doesn’t really get going till after the first autobiographical bit, but from then on you can see why it’s the standard text on writing. Definitive.

Cormac McArthy – Blood Meridian

Beautifully written.

(My book reports would typically be about Solzhenitsyn or Salvador Dali. Musketeer nr 3’s would be a one hundred and fifty-page disquisition on Lord of the Rings- a sort of page by page account).

Brilliantly straightforward

Stephen Morris “Record Play Pause”

With a drumming style classically based on Robbie Coltrane in Ghostdance, unfortunately he doesn’t say more on his experience at the House on the Borderlands bookshop but otherwise an illuminating account of the Joy Division years.

Robert Harris “Fatherland”

Narrated by Anton Lesser, Full Cast

A brilliantly disconcerting account of a re-imagined post-war world (very much ‘Man in a High Castle’ meets ‘Come and See’).

Robert Harris “Pompeii”

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Narrated by Steven Pacey

Though nothing can be as good as the Rome TV dramatization this waterworks story is pretty amazing.

William Gibson “Pattern Recognition”

Narrated by Shelly Frasier

I am sure I would say this is the definitive 9/11 book if I’d read any others. The reading by Shelly Frasier is brilliant though some strange pronunciations of Japanese words and places. Excellent account of London, New York, Tokyo and Moscow.

Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker “Poodle Springs”

narrated by Toby Stephens as Philip Marlowe

Ironically the best ever Raymond Chandler book- just about everything else has some small annoyance. Perfect.

Neil Gaiman  “Norse Mythology”

narrated by Nail Gaiman

Intro and final chapter Ragnarok brilliant. The rest is noting to write home about.

Walter Mosley “Devil in a Blue Dress”

narrated by Michael Boatman

Reminds one of the brilliant Denzel Washington film.

Elmore Leonard “Get Shorty”

narrated by Nick Landrum

Inconclusive ending but some ace bits.

Jan Morris “Venice”

Beautifully written to the extend that you can feel the heat and smell the place. 

“Difficult”

F.Scott Fitzgerald “The Great Gatsby”

narrated by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Beautifully written except for the crap antisemitism I guess contemporary to the times.

Joseph Conrad “Heart of Darkness”

A Colonial story.

Iain Sinclair “London Orbital”

Seductively nasty.