Books and Issue 639

Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth

3 Sep 2009

Right, pay attention at the back. You boy, straighten your tie. Now, you all know why you’ve been called back for detention with Professor Dawkins and, frankly, you’ve only got yourselves to blame. He explained it all very carefully in The Selfish Gene…

Heavy Metal Dredd by John Wagner, Alan Grant and various

A collection of Judge Dredd's most exteme adventures

3 Sep 2009

More from your favourite ultra hard-line future lawman in this collection of some of Judge Dredd’s most extreme stories. First printed in Rock Power and the Judge Dredd Megazine, these are stories with no limits, going for bloody slapstick comedy with a…

Nick Hornby - Juliet, Naked

11 Sep 2009

(Viking) Never meet your heroes, we are told, they’re bound to be a disappointment. But what happens when you’re going for a run in a dead-end English seaside town and you bump into an ex-girlfriend who introduces you to your all-time, number one icon?

Hitlist: Books

3 Sep 2009

Mary Brennan As Scottish Ballet opens a new chapter on its story with a move to Glasgow’s Tramway, The Herald dance critic celebrates the company’s many successes as she talks about her lavishly illustrated book, Scottish Ballet: Forty Years.

Also published: Books

The comedians turn to literature this week

3 Sep 2009

Jack Dee - Thanks for Nothing, Jo Brand - Look Back in Hunger, Dara O’Briain - Tickling the English, Justin Lee Collins - Good Times, Peter Kay - Saturday Night Peter

Jah Wobble - Memoirs of a Geezer: The Autobiography

3 Sep 2009

Within the first paragraph of this look-back over a particularly distinctive life and musical career, John Wardle has been born in Stepney, E1. And within the first page-and-a-half, his mum has had their house exorcised (but not a ‘full-on pukka…

Val McDermid - Fever of the Bone

3 Sep 2009

Staying true to gruesome form, the first murder in the Fife crime novelist’s latest slice of Tartan Noir could’ve been committed in 1880s Whitechapel. After the body of a young girl is found with her genitals removed, psychological profiler Tony Hill…

Trust Me by Peter Leonard

Elmore's son serves up his second crime thriller

3 Sep 2009

Having crime-writing legend Elmore Leonard as your dad is a lot to live up to, but with this bristling second fiction outing, son Peter almost keeps up the family name. Set in Detroit, with a cast of hapless, amoral baddies, his relentlessly-paced noir…

Off the Page

Stirling's book festival

3 Sep 2009

Book lovers are set for a treat this month as a flurry of leading authors make the trip to Stirling. A week-long jamboree of literary lovelies, this year’s line-up includes Ian Rankin, Rodge Glass and ex-WPC Karen Campbell. The kids should be kept…