Back from a week’s holiday iin Sri Lanka – lovely, thanks – and ready to get back to work for the New Year, I thought I would share some of the holiday reading I enjoyed.
Most was of the crime/thriller sort – a great way to wind down:
- John Harvey (Good Bait)
- Michael Connelly (The Black Box)
- John Grisham (The Litigators)
- Ian Ranking (Standing in Another Man’s Grave) – always very good value
- Christopher Brookmyre (Jaggy Splinters – a selection of short stories, including the hilairious “Playground Football” – and When the Devil Drives)
- J K Rowling (A Casual Vacancy – better than I had expected)
- Terry Prathett (A Blink of the Sccreen – more short stories); I confess, I have never really enjoyed Pratchett’s books, though I realise they are hugely popular
- Ian M Banks (Consider Phlebas – about time I started the Culture novels, and I was not disappointed)
- Peter James (Not Dead Yet)
- Ian Sinclair (White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings)
- Jerome K Jerome (Three Men on the Bummell – I needed something for light relief)
- Dominion by C J Sansom
The most memorable book was non-fiction: Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves To Death”, the main theme of which is that television inevitably trivialises public debate by treating it all as show business. Well worth a read, and readily available via the behemoth that is Amazon, in both paper and Kindle versions: http://amzn.to/TEeimk
In fact, I think I will Tweet quotes from it over the next couple of weeks