Books, Issue 619

Christmas books

One question is eventually brought up about Christmas by the more inquisitive elements within the community of children. Just how in blazes does Santa manage to get round all the kids of the world in one night? Logical responses about shifting time…

Twilight

The Twilight books, we are reliably informed by sources close to the material, are not just for teenage girls. As the first installment of a film franchise starring undead fop Cedric Diggory hits screens across the UK, commune with your fellow, eh…

Film books round-Up

‘Tis the season to settle down with a good old-fashioned film book. Having a stack of cinema related tomes on your bedside table is essential for any aspiring cineaste at this time of year. So after many hours of sifting through recent releases this is…

Jay McInerney - The Last Bachelor

SHORT STORIES The vice that spices up this short story collection by Jay McInerney – a peeping tom on modern, urban American life – is not the overtly debauched or instantly shocking kind. Instead, his characters toy with taboos, flirt with socially…

Jim Lawrence, John McLusky & Yaroslav Horak - James Bond 007: Polestar

SPY THRILLER Amidst the furious modernism of Daniel Craig’s James Bond incarnation, it’s becoming easier to forget just what a retro thrill the character was for so many years. This collection celebrates a vision of the character from the most sadly…

Charles Berlitz - The Bermuda Triangle

MYSTERY RE-ISSUE Christopher Columbus was the first recorded individual to find something peculiar about the area dubbed Devil’s Triangle, writing in his log about ‘strange dancing lights on the horizon’. Five centuries on and Barry Manilow remains…

Tim Blanning - The Triumph of Music

MUSIC HISTORY Make no bones about it, The Triumph of Music is a heavy read, but it’s also a hugely fascinating one. Penned by Tim Blanning – a Professor of Modern European History at Cambridge – this book has the academic turning his attention to…

Martin Greig - The Zen of Naka

SPORTS BIOGRAPHY Timing is everything when it comes to sport biogs. As Celtic tumble out of Europe in a flurry of missed opportunities, and with rumours rife that Shunsuke Nakamura may part company with the club in January, it seems Martin Greig’s…

Various - The Bumper Book of Roy of the Rovers

FOOTIE Splitting your defences with a timely ‘gosh’, ‘heck’ and ‘thunderation’, this collection of Roy Race’s adventures from the years 1958-71 should send a tingle down the spine of anyone who ever picked up the comic. Melchester Rovers’ most famous…

Claude McKay - Banjo

SOCIAL DRAMA ‘A story without a plot’ is not the most promising strapline for a novel you’ll ever come across, but there’s enough character, spice and joie de vivre in this deceptively intelligent meander to pull the reader through. Serpent’s Tail…

David Heatley - My Brain is Hanging Upside Down

AUTOBIOGRAPHY Its not unusual for an artist to use their life as source material, David Heatley has taken this autobiographical conceit to an altogether more meticulous end: he has taken entire hunks of his life and reproduce them in their entirety…

Pat Mills & Various - The Complete Ro-Busters

SCI-FI Starting out in 2000AD’s sister mag Starlord (before jumping ship when Starlord folded to its more successful sibling), Ro-Busters was a more cynical version of Thunderbirds. They are an all robot search and rescue team run by Mr 10 Percent, a…