Reviews Of Other Books
One of the biggest benefits of writing your own stuff is that it makes you realise just how much better everyone else's writing is than yours. I wish I could write crime fiction, which I really enjoy reading myself. I wish I could write flowing literary prose, like Kazuo Ishiguro, Annie Prioux or Ian McEwan, to pluck just three out of nowhere. But I can't. Instead I write tongue-in-cheek, comedic prose, at least in my novels.
Perhaps I'm afraid to try. Perhaps the secret is to throw myself into the book and expose my inner self to the reader. But I'm a poor swimmer and I was always too scared to jump into the deep end. I've actually got a bit of a problem with heights. But being an inadequate writer leaves me in awe of those who can do the very things I can't. So I read a range of things – old, new, long, short and a whole lot of crime fiction. This page gives you an idea of my personal taste. And if you want to join me in appreciating good writing, please connect on Goodreads, Twitter or at the very least just get back to me somehow. Reading is writing without the effort. No wonder we read in bed so much. Meanwhile...
The remarkable collage above right is actually a very clever little Goodreads widget. Click on any of the little images in it and you'll be taken directly to my review of the book in question. Alternatively, you can see the most recently-read five listed below. Clever, huh? Gordon's bookshelf: read
 
One of those 3.5 star books. This is very much one of those "Golden Age" crime novels, perhaps the last of the genre. Everything is very genteel, there's a murder, there's a puzzle with clues where the solution is only revealed right at ...
I don't read a lot of non-fiction – my preference is very much for escapist crime fiction and thrillers. But this is an astonishing exception, and I'm so glad I was given it as a gift. It tells the story of Slovak Jew Walter Rosenberg (a...
I'm not quite sure about novels written by more than one author. I had similar issues with Ambrose Parry (aka Christopher Brookmyre & Marisa Haetzman) – sometimes you can see the joins. I struggled a little with some of the plot, which h...
Declaration of interest: I know the author. She used to be a work colleague of mine, although not a close friend. That usually makes me a little hesitant to review any books I've read, but I'll be honest, Mamie Philp's Mr Murdoch is Dead...
Bologna is a favourite Italian city, so it's great to see Daniel Leicester, Tom Benjamin's private detective, based there. In this, the first of the series, we learn how ex-journalist Daniel came to move from England to Italy, and how he...
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