I’m quite a fan of the writer Ian Rankin and the Inspector Rebus stories, so when I saw that his new book Doors Open had hit the paperback shelves, I had to pick it up, as much as anything else because I wanted to see what he would do in what I presume is intended [...]

Errornomics by Joseph T Hallinan is another non-fiction book, which obviously means it comes with a bonus free subtitle: “Why We Make Mistakes and What We Can Do to Avoid Them”. Talking of mistakes, Amazon said that the book was released in paperback on the 6th of August, but as I’d bought it, read it, [...]

I’m quite into crime/thrillers at the moment, and considering my general geekiness, I can’t deny that part of the thing which attracted me to this book was the use of the word ‘website’ in this blurb: A year later, frustrated with the police enquiry, Ed vows to find Sophie’s killer. His quest leads to a [...]

Now of all the actors who have played Doctor Who on the telly, the one who is my least favourite is Colin Baker. Generally, Colin and Sylvester McCoy are the ones named when people name their least favourite actor for Doctor Who, which is possibly a little unfair on them, because this is the time [...]

So I went to an ‘author event’ at Newcastle City Library the other day. It was the first time I had been to the library since it had been considerably redeveloped, and I must say — particularly in contrast to the Hancock — how impressed I was with the whole thing. Admittedly, the key element [...]

Torchwood: Children of Earth saw the Doctor Who spin-off drama Torchwood, led by John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness transfer to BBC 1 for the first time. Rather than the standard one episode per week for thirteen weeks, this was one episode per night for five nights, seemingly stemming from a desire to do something [...]

There’s something about fantasy novels, isn’t there, that makes the authors think that one novel isn’t enough, that two novels aren’t enough; the story arc must extend over a trilogy. Whether this is in homage to Tolkien, or simply a much used convention, it seems to be pretty much the standard for fantasy novels. And [...]

I’d read Stuart Maconie’s book Pies and Prejudice where he went around the North of England and talked about what the North of England actually had to offer, and how it was really a nice place, and that prejudiced Southerners who thought of it as just flat caps, whippets, and derelict industrial estates were miles [...]

The “kids” got Mario Kart for the Wii for Christmas. It’s the game where you plug the Wiimote into a driving wheel, and basically drive around with that. It’s also bloody good fun. If you have a Wii, and I had to recommend one game, this is the game I would choose (although I also [...]

I recently picked up Alan Carr’s autobiography Look Who It Is. I don’t read a lot of biographies but for some reason this one jumped out at me. I think the silly seaside postcard type cover might have helped though, as I do like that. But then there’s the factor that any biographies I do [...]