John Diamond was a journalist and broadcaster known for his wit as much as for his marriage to Nigella Lawson and he was by his own admission, a hypochondriac. After decades of seeing every little twinge as a portent of medical doom and waiting almost expectantly for the heart attack for which decades of over-indulgence must surely qualify him, it was as much a self-fulfilling prophesy as a big surprise when a lump in his neck turned out to be more sinister than he’d expected.

In March 1997 he was given a diagnosis of a cancerous lymph node in his neck and the doctors told him with confidence he had a 92% chance of being fine and dandy in no time at all. Sometimes doctors get things wrong – and ‘C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too’ is Diamond’s best selling account of his experience with cancer, based in part on columns that he published in the Times newspaper’s Saturday magazine.

John Diamond

Continue reading

It is a truth universally acknowledged that self help books are the trend of the day because they encourage others to dream. Rashmi Bansal has put together a handy collection of the realized dreams of 20 social entrepreneurs to serve as examples for others to follow. The entrepreneurs are clubbed in 3 groups: “rainmakers”, “changemakers”, and “the spiritual capitalist”, with individual chapters which have admittedly intriguing titles like ‘The Girl in the Mirror’, “Soul Food’ and ‘Lead Kindly Light’, to mention a few.

Bansal takes Martin Luther King’s famous speech of August 1963 as the starting point for her book, though she is quick to point out that the people she has chosen ‘are …not Mother Teresa.

Rashmi Bansal

Continue reading

When Oskar asks an old university friend to look after his apartment while he goes to attend to his divorce in Los Angeles, he clearly has some inkling that the property may not be looked after exactly as he would wish. Why else would he leave notes hidden around the flat outlining the action to be taken should the worst occur? The worst, it seems, would be damage to the apartment’s pristine wooden floor and Oskar’s notes stress the importance of acting quickly should anything be spilled on the boards.

The apartment is on the first floor of an old building in the heart of some unnamed eastern European capital city where Oskar lives with his two cats Shossy and Stravvy.

Will Wiles

Continue reading

Having thoroughly enjoyed Tony Park’s recent novel, African Dawn, I added his other novels to my wishlist – all of them set in Africa and sounding similarly exciting. He hasn’t written that many novels, so I decided to ration them so as to make the enjoyment of them last. My first purchase was The Delta.

Sonja is a mercenary, originally from Namibia, a former soldier who now works for a security firm, basically soldiers or assassins for hire. After a botched assassination attempt in Zimbabwe, she hides in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, a place she knows well.

Tony Park

Continue reading

For someone who loves India and has an interest nearing on obsession with the days of the Raj and the fight for Independence, I could be expected to have an opinion on Rudyard Kipling. Perhaps I do, but it’s one until now based on ignorance because I’d never read any of his books – the odd poem in school, but never an actual book.

Similarly it would seem fair to assume that anyone who has a black cat called Bagheera and a big grey cat called Baloo, must be a fan of the Kipling’s most famous book, The Jungle Book. Sadly I have to confess that despite choosing the ‘man cub’s two best buddies the panther and the bear as names for my kitty-boys, I’d never actually got round to reading the Jungle Book. Even more shamefully I would admit that I can merrily sing all the words to ‘The Bear Necessities’ and ‘I wanna be like you-hoo-hoo’. I am a victim of knowledge by Disneyfication.

Continue reading

Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite authors as her novels always challenge and provoke whilst tackling controversial topics. In her latest book, Lone Wolf, she prompts one to think about the sanctity of life as her main character is kept alive by machines in his hospital bed while his children argue about whether he should be allowed to die. The novel is made more interesting though as we learn about Luke Warren’s past and the somewhat unorthodox relationships he has had with his family.

The title – Lone Wolf is apt as we discover that Luke is a biologist who has spent his life studying and learning about the behaviour of wolves.

Jodi Picoult

Continue reading

When Shaun Ryder appeared in (and very nearly won) the 2010 TV series of ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’, the nation split into two camps. The over 55s and under 35s mostly didn’t have the slightest idea who he was and those whose age lay between knew exactly who Ryder was but were flabbergasted he’d survived the years of drugs and hard living with his mental faculties sufficiently in tact to be capable of doing much more than sitting in a corner talking to himself. As front man of the Happy Mondays, Salford-born Ryder was at the forefront of the late 80′s and early 90′s ‘Madchester’ movement, a major earner for the late Tony Wilson’s ‘Factory’ record label and by his own admission one of the people responsible for introducing the rave drug ‘Ecstasy’ into the UK via the now defunct but at the time notorious club, the Hacienda.

Shaun Ryder

Continue reading

“There was a time not so very long ago when boys were taught to be men” writes author, archaeologist and broadcaster Neil Oliver, and “part of the education of boys came from reading tales of brave and selfless deeds”. Not so any more. “It’s rubbish being a British man at the moment…nowadays the rest of the world sees British men as the performing seals of George W Bush’s Wild West Show. We’re the sick men of Europe too with our lazy fat guts and our binge-drinking.” He also opines that nothing grand or challenging that we do now is simply for the sake of it; nothing is important unless it is done live on air or filmed to be broadcast to the masses – perhaps a strange complaint from a man who makes his living from such media. But while being an archaeologist in Scottish winters, growing hero hair and appearing on TV in armour and wielding swords may be a little bit manly, Oliver is more interested in manliness on a much grander scale and how stories about such manliness could be an antidote to his despair for the youth of today.

Neil Oliver

Continue reading

A picture book containing six chapters might sound rather too much for young children. But Allan Ahlberg and Raymond Briggs A Bit More Bert is full of illustrations and has just a little text on each page. The chapters have a title page and then another three pages, except for Chapter 5 which has seven pages. Each chapter is actually more like a mini story, so if a child has a very short attention span, you wouldn’t have to read the whole book at once. We read about Bert and his dog, who is also called Bert, we give Bert a haircut, and then we see how Bert is constantly nagged by his mother (named Grandma Bert).

Allan Ahlberg, Raymond Briggs

Continue reading