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Martin Amis’s actual best novels – All By My Shelf
In the numerous pieces published about the death of Martin Amis, a number of contributors felt the understandable need to provide an assessment of his best work. Many of these lists included his essays and criticism; and in terms of his novels, there was an almost unanimous agreement that Money should be at the top,…
Hits and misses of 2022 – All By My Shelf
When I look back on my reading in 2022, it strikes me - a little to my surprise - that there aren't that many books that I absolutely loved. There was plenty of stuff that was engaging, readable, admirable even; but not a huge amount of material that I would thrust into a friend's hand…
The worst dialogue in books I’ve read this year – All By My Shelf
It’s a tricky old thing, dialogue, and has an effect which is much like that of background music in television programmes. Done well, it can lift something out of the ordinary. Done adequately, you barely notice it’s there. But done badly and it can jar in the most horrible of ways. I recently read a…
Describing the indescribable: The most notable books about the Holocaust – All By My Shelf
Not the lightest of topics, maybe, but Remembrance Weekend seems as good a time as any to consider the books which most effectively portray the reality of the Holocaust. How do you describe the indescribable, or imagine the unimaginable? Many writers have tried and failed, but these below are the books which, for sometimes different…
I like writing about books, so why do I find it so hard to remember them? – All By My Shelf
I’m often asked (by my wife, roughly once a week) why I need to keep books that I have already read, and why the bookshelves can’t be cleared to make way for more useful items such as knick-knacks, assorted pens, and random scraps of paper. My stock answer is that books are not a single…
The worst uses of music in film and TV adaptations of books – All By My Shelf
Just as the right choice of music can lift a film adaptation out of the ordinary (Pulp Fiction, Jaws, Trainspotting and The Exorcist are obvious examples), so can a bad choice of song bring a movie to a juddering halt like nothing else. If it stays in your mind for all the wrong reasons, then…
Jumping someone else’s train: How one naughty film distributor cashed in on Paula Hawkins’ success – All By My Shelf
How about a game of 'Spot the Difference'? 'The Girl On The Train' is a best-selling thriller by Paula Hawkins, which was made into a fairly average film starring Emily Blunt. 'The Girl On The Train' is also another - equally average - film which stars Henry Ian Cusick as a man suspected of murder. They are not related in…
‘Lockdown’ by Peter May: What it got right and what it got wrong – All By My Shelf
Back in 2005 Peter May was not an unknown author, having published most of his China thriller series as well as several standalone novels, but he was certainly without the necessary clout for publishers to put into print whatever came their way from him. And so it was that his thriller 'Lockdown', set in London…
Are best-sellers best avoided? – All By My Shelf
Last year I read, for the first time, two of the most popular books of all time; Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird. It’s hard to say why I had left it so long to get around to reading them. But it has something to do with the mathematical formula Number of…
The gender agenda: The best books by men writing as women (and vice versa) – All By My Shelf
The books I read are normally divided about 70/30 between male and female authors (and yes, I'm sad enough to list books I've read, so I do know the actual percentages). This year though, I had a quick check and I'm running at 55/45 in favour of female authors. There's no particular reason for it,…
My books of 2017 – All By My Shelf
These are my books of the year, but none of them have been published this year. Obviously. I haven’t gone out and bought all the latest fiction hardbacks as soon as they hit the shelves. These just happen to have been the best books I have read this calendar year, whether they were published one,…
My best and worst books of 2020 – All By My Shelf
Like many people, I imagine, my reading habits changed in 2020. I read more; and I read different types of books. It's been a year of comfort reading, no doubt, and as the year went on I found myself increasingly drawn to either 19th century staples - Austen, Hardy - or to 'boy's own' thrillers…