I’m a member of a book club which meets every month to discuss a novel chosen by one of the members. I originally joined the club to broaden my reading experience. Left to my own devices I tend to end up reading Science Fiction.
This month’s book choice is a good example of this in action. I [...]

“In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree…” Kublai Khan is probably best known in the UK for the famous poetic fantasy by Coleridge. However the truth behind the legend of Kublai Khan is even more fantastic than the poem suggests.
Kublai Khan was a thirteenth century Mongolian prince who inherited the largest land [...]

I have always been anti-TV. I love reading, so having a TV on in the room interferes with that. Whenever I watch a lot of TV, (more than an hour), I’m left with an empty, “what a waste of time” , feeling. I have never been able to put my finger on why I felt like [...]

The psychologist Oliver James looks at the modern world and tries to answer the conundrum;
“Why is it that despite the Western World being materially richer than it has ever been before, the middle classes are suffering from high rates of depression, anxiety, addiction and ennui?”
He examines the problem in different Capitalist cultures from the UK  and [...]

The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears is set in France over three time periods at critical moments in history. The 5th century and the collapse of the Roman Empire, the 14th century and the arrival of the Black Death plague and the 20th century  with the second world war. 
This sounds interesting – and it is, however [...]

Most readers gravitate to their favourite authors or subjects, so I end up reading science fiction a lot. I would like to be more widely read, but have a vague fear that it may be hard work.
Joining a book club was the solution for me. Luckily, Tracey at Spa Striders  started a book club last year [...]

Books are important to me, they are a guaranteed avenue of pleasure. However the first book I want to write about, is not a book at all – it’s a ‘graphic novel’; what most people think of as just a posh comic.
Graphic novels have come up in the world. They now have their own section in [...]