Gone by Michael Grant is the first novel in a series which, like many book series, is named after its first novel. It is a young adult novel, something I wasn’t actually aware of before I read it – although I do read quite a bit of young adult fiction.

One day, in a Californian town called Perdido Beach, everyone aged fifteen and over disappears. There is no warning – they just vanish into thin air. Cars crash, homes are left empty, TV and phones stop working. And the only ones left are those under fourteen. Sam Temple and his friends Quinn and Astrid try to figure out what is happening as they go in search of Astrid’s autistic brother Little Pete.

Michael Grant

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In 2011, a new show began on Sky, called A Game of Thrones. Starring Sean Bean, it looked like an absorbing fantasy epic, yet as with many shows I forgot to watch the first episode and never managed to catch up. Yet the show brought to my attention the series of novels upon which it was based – George R. R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire.

The first novel in the series is A Song Of Ice And Fire. Set in a land called Westeros, known as the Seven Kingdoms, it follows a number of characters through the beginning of troubled times. The main characters are the Stark family, with Eddard, or Ned, at its head as Lord of Winterfell.

George R.R. Martin

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The Lady in the Tower by Alison Weir bears the subtitle “The Fall of Anne Boleyn”, which tells you just about everything you need to know about the book. Assuming you know Alison Weir is a historian, you will then be able to surmise that this is a historical study of the last months and days of the life of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIIIs second queen.

Henry VIII became infatuated with Anne while he was still married to Katherine of Aragon. For six long years she kept him obsessed with her, refusing to sleep with him until they were married. Finally he broke with Rome in order to take over as Supreme Head of the Church of England, and therefore set Katherine aside and marry Anne.

Alison Weir

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When it comes to historical buildings, there are few with quite so much pedigree as the Tower of London. It has stood through so many years, so much history, that the past is almost literally seeping from its walls.

With a long-standing interest history, particularly the Tudor period, Tower by Nigel Jones was definitely a book for me. “An Epic History of the Tower of London” it was subtitled as – perfect, I thought, all this wonderfully fascinating history presented through its relationship to the Tower. Construction began under William the Conqueror in the 1080s, and throughout the centuries the Tower has been a fortress, palace, jail, torture chamber and zoo.

Nigel Jones

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Maine by Courtney Sullivan is presented as a family saga, with large parts of it set and focused on, rather unsurprisingly, the Kelleher family’s summer home in Maine. Three generations of Kelleher women are in Maine: Alice, the prickly matriarch; her daughter Kathleen, who is best described as the black sheep of the family; Kathleen’s daughter Maggie, pregnant and newly single; and Alice’s daughter-in-law, Ann-Marie, an uptight perfectionist who is now harbouring desires for an affair.

Maine is one of those novels which doesn’t really have a clear-cut story. Each character has their own chapters, which of course tell their story – for Alice this is largely memories of a long-ago tragedy, while for the others it is their present.

Courtney Sullivan

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Miracle on Regent Street by Ali Harris is the story of Evie, who feels she is invisible. She lives with her married sister, has no love life and her colleagues think she is the girl she replaced two years earlier. The department store she works in and loves is struggling, so Evie decides to turn things round, but no one realizes the changes are thanks to her…

Having heard good things about Miracle on Regent Street, when I fancied a bit of lightweight reading around Christmas this seemed like a good choice. Sadly, it soon became apparent that I should have gone for something else.

Ali Harris

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Since my early teens I have been a fan of Michael Crichton – most of my adult reading life. I have always looked forward to his novels, and was deeply saddened to hear of his death in 2008. Yet since then there have been two new Crichton novels published – Pirate Latitudes, discovered completed on his computer after his death, and the recent Micro, which was around a third completed and has been finished by Richard Preston, based on Crichton’s outline and notes.

Prior to his death, Crichton described Micro as “an adventure story like Jurassic Park”. Set in Hawaii, it follows six graduate students as they visit a company called Nanogen which is promising them jobs using advanced technology and research methods.

Michael Crichton, Richard Preston

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I tend to be quite derisive of that genre known as “chick-lit”. The term chick-lit itself does the genre no favours, and there is a lot of rubbish under that heading. I find most of it clichéd, sappy and poorly written. Yet there are some authors and novels which are worth reading, and so I occasionally give in to my urge for an easy, thoughtless read in the hope of finding something good. After all, we all love a happy ending, and you’re almost guaranteed that with chick-lit.

I had no hopes for Lindsey Kelk’s I Heart series.

Lindsey Kelk

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Charley Boorman is an actor, traveller and biker. In 2004 he travelled round the world on motorbikes with best friend Ewan McGregor. He entered the most dangerous race on earth, the Dakar Rally, in 2006, and reunited with Ewan in 2007 for Long Way Down, riding through Africa. Charley then went on to travel from Ireland to Sydney in By Any Means, and from Sydney to Tokyo in Right to the Edge. Now he’s back with a brand new adventure – this time all in one country, in Extreme Frontiers: Racing Across Canada. Extreme Frontiers: Racing Across Canada From Newfoundland to the Rockies is now available on book and DVD at Amazon.

CBF: Charley, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to Curious Book Fans, we’re big fans of yours. Tell us a little bit about Extreme Frontiers – how did the idea come about and why did you choose Canada?

Charley Boorman: Ewan and I had gone through many different countries together including Canada. We travelled through the Rockies but there was a big fire so we didn’t actually get to see them due to the smoke!

Charley Boorman, interview

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Is That a Fish in Your Ear? by David Bellos, with the subtitle Translation and the Meaning of Everything, is a study of the world of translation. What is translation, what does it mean to translate, the history of translation, the pitfalls and different types of translation…these are all areas which Bellos looks at.

Having studied languages to an advanced level, and with an additional focus on translation, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? is a book which appealed to me. I was interested to learn more about this field – I may have studied translation itself, but I know little of the history or the issues surrounding it.

David Bellos

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Kathryn Stockett’s The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights movement. Life in Jackson, however, does not really seem to be changing. The Help is a story of two black maids (the help), and one white woman who writes a book about the experiences of maids in Jackson.

The style of The Help throws you slightly at first, written as it is in a first-person Southern US twang – perhaps you could call it an accent or dialect, but neither seems quite right. This is particularly noticeable in the sections narrated by Aibileen and Minny, the maids.

Kathryn Stockett

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