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On The Beach by Nevil Shute. It's 1963. We're in Melbourne. Melbourne's nice, isn't it? The sea, the cricket, the Royal...

Pig by Andrew Cowan. Danny is in his mid-teens, probably 15 or 16, and lives with his parents and slobbish elder brother Richard in som...

We had a week's family holiday in the Lake District last week. As you can imagine if you know me at all, this will have comprised lots o...

True Grit by Charles Portis. Life isn't easy in the old West. The rule of law is a tenuous thing and often the manner of its applic...

A high culture/low culture mash-up today, you might say, if you were as snobbish and patronising as me; Chilean politician, poet and Nobel l...

Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. Our protagonist, Antoine Roquentin, is a writer trying to write a biography of some 18th-century French poli...

Ex-CEO of ExxonMobil and, as of his unexpected (to him at least) firing yesterday , ex-US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and former show...

It was my birthday at the weekend. No need for congratulation or commiseration, particularly, although if you really want to make some sort...

Historic times here at the Electric Halibrary. Let me explain: you will of course recall that at the end of the review of Heather McGowan...

Exposure by Helen Dunmore. Simon and Lily Callington have a nice enough life - a house in Muswell Hill, three children aged between five...

I saw the countdown of the last 20 or so walks in Britain's Favourite Walks a week or two ago, many of them very familiar to me. It was...

A couple of thoughts after watching a bit of the men's Australian Open tennis final the other day. Firstly, I should lay my cards on th...

In a shocking and shameful dereliction of duty and a betrayal of everything that this blog stands for, I note that we have only done one hal...

Matter by Iain M Banks. Here on Earth we take the whole planet occupation thing for granted. Simply evolve over a series of aeons from s...

Another day, another gratifyingly early fulfilment of a New Year's resolution, this one being to really step up the brutal and  relentle...