I was expecting great things in this book from a thinker I deeply admire. Unfortunately it has nothing new to say and has no chance of convincing anyone on either side of the fence. I'm not a big reader, I rarely read anything approaching philosophy...

So Wimbledon was in progress, I was in my local bookshop and this novel caught my eye. Its the story of Willy, a low ranking tennis professional on the way up when we first encounter her. She's been playing tennis since aged four and is now...

Easy to read, page turner of a novel whose main character is Peter, a bullied teenager, who heads into high school one morning armed and kills ten people. I found many of the characters to be cliched and a bit one dimensional. But despite that the...

I did a last-minute race down to The Fish Shop in Union Hall this morning to check it out. It's as good as they say! Great selection of fish, shellfish, gormet seafood products and wine. Well worth travelling to. So my lazy ass didn't get...

One of the best things about living in Ireland is the availability and choice of butchers.   This was simply not an option when we lived in the US and we ended up having to buy the dubious supermarket meat.  We've lived in three towns in Ireland now...

I recently discovered this website by way of a link from the main Mango site. Its basically a discount site that has garments from previous seasons available for sale at greatly reduced rates. It suits me down to the ground as I'm not...

I bought a selection of wines recently from James Nicholson Wines Online as I was bored with the usual selection in my local off licences and supermarkets. I was interested in particular in some Californian, Chilean or New Zealand Pinot Noirs and...

Having read and enjoyed “Man and Boy” and “One for my baby”, I was looking forward to reading this latest novel from Tony Parsons. Alas it was a major disappointment. Having just finished it, I am left with a sense of...

I noticed that Twenty Major's book got some bad reviews in the newspapers which didn't put me off buying it. As a regular reader of the blog I know what to expect and I wasn't disappointed at all. The same style of writing runs through the book as the...

My mother in law lent me this book a few weeks ago and it was a good read up to a point. My main gripe is its very disappointing ending which then tarred the whole novel as I wondered “why the hell did I bother reading that?” Its set in...