Tag Archives: Book Club

I first began reading Roger Ebert’s memoir, Life Itself, a couple of months ago.  In a sad but not entirely unexpected development, Ebert passed away from his long battle with cancer before I had a chance to finish the book.  Being a man with an impeccable and unnerving sense of timing, Ebert publicly blogged his retirement from full time film ...

“The children were playing while Holston climbed to his death” Wool is a post-apocalyptic epic that’s been refered to as the sci-fi answer to 50 Shades Of Grey.  That’s not because it has terrible writing and contains fisting but it originated as a self-published ebook that was a scant 60 pages.  After finding an audience and a major publisher, Howey ...

Ever look on eBay or Amazon and feel the urge to spend hundreds of dollars on books, toys and knick knacks from your childhood?  It probably goes without saying that as a grown man who collects Lego, hoards video games and owns the complete sets of Tintin, Asterix, Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side that I am someone who ...

“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.” On their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne’s wife Amy disappears and their home shows signs of a violent struggle.  There are traces of blood but no body is discovered.  What happened?  Who killed Amy?  Is she even dead?  Just what is going on here? Gone Girl is the ...

Room is a prize winning novel from Canadian author Emma Donoghue.  Its a story told from the perspective of a five year old boy Jack who has lived in a single room all his life with his mother.  They are the hostages of ‘Old Nick’, who abducted Jack’s mother when she was a teenager and impregnated her. Donoghue was inspired ...

When I was visiting some friends in London last year, a boyfriend of a friend recommended an author to me by the name of Malcolm Gladwell.  At the time, I was appallingly drunk and had to ask him to repeat the name of the author no less than seven times.  After that, it must have stayed in some dormant part ...

Looking back on 2010, here’s an assortment of topics off the top of my head that stood out as being worthy highlights or forgettable lowlights for the year. The Best of the Year The iPad I picked up an iPad at launch when it came out in May this year and am still absolutely in love with it.  It’s simple ...

I started reading A Season With Verona a couple of months ago when it was handed to me by a friend.  Written in 2001, it follows a season with relegation-battling Seria A football club Hellas Verona FC from the perspective of a British author who has lived in Italy for a number of years. It’s a well written book and ...

Now that I’ve finished off Stephen King’s Under the Dome I’m now going to head in a completely different direction for my next book.  Next up is Tim Park’s football journal A Season With Verona which details the British author’s experience of spending a season following the club Hellas Verona and its supporters. I can’t say I know much about ...

Domo arigato, Mr King.