I received a few books from Amazon yesterday that I intend to read over the next few weeks. As I added the books over the course of the last few months, I hadn’t quite taken in that the books were all of a very similar media theme: Shooting History, by Jon Snow News from No Man’s Land, [...]
I was delighted to receive an e-mail from John Forbat that he would soon be publishing a book titled The Secret World of Vickers Guided Weapons. I’ve been in touch with John for a couple of years after he discovered my website article about my grandfather, Paul Leyton (You can read his posting in the [...]
I love reading, but every now and then I find I’m no longer compelled to pick up a book. Usually this is because I find one or two books harder to get through than normal. I then start picking up a newspaper, or a magazine, and find that more enjoyable. So the books fall by [...]
In the ongoing saga of the loft-as-office project, I’m pleased to report that this weekend my books finally made their way up. They’re sat directly across from me, and for the first time in many a year, they’re actually on bookshelves. A wonderful invention I suggest all book lovers contemplate. Books just don’t really look [...]
Francis Wheen’s book How Mumbo-Jumbo conquered the world was an enjoyable and interesting book, but marks the end - for now - of my extended reading of science/political/analytical books. For the last few months I’ve been devouring books by authors such as Richard Dawkins and Jung Chang, on Mao, and to be honest I need [...]
Last night I was fortunate to be able to meet Jung Chang at Waterstones, on Sauchiehall Street here in Glasgow (I’ve previously mentioned it here). It was a fascinating evening, and all the better for the presence of a lecturer from Glasgow University who ensured a fascinating series of questions started proceedings. I’m already a few [...]
Almost exactly two years ago, I read “Memoirs of a Geisha”, and was enraptured by the novel. Since then, however, I’ve both visited Kyoto in Japan, and learnt that much of the story portrayed in the book is the subject of much controversy, and it is far from an accurate portrayal of the Geisha [...]
There has been a great deal of publicity associated with Juang Chang’s new book Mao: The Unknown Story. Having thoroughly enjoyed reading her first book, Wild Swans, I recently ordered the new book from Amazon, and await delivery - hopefully tomorrow. She was a guest on Start the Week yesterday, and it was primarily her [...]
