A Street Cat Named Bob
By James Bowen
This is the inspirational story of James Bowen, a street musician living in London. One day in March 2007 he found an injured ginger cat in the hallway of his block of flats. The moment the pair found each other was a turning point in both of their lives. Read more
The Comfort of Strangers
by Ian McEwan
At a mere 100 pages, even slower readers like myself can read this in one sitting. A dark tale of an English couple holidaying in a city which is unmistakably Venice, though it is never explicitly stated. McEwan nevertheless captures the mood of the city and the landmarks are instantly recognisable through his vivid description. Read more
FlashForward
by Robert J. Sawyer
The book which inspired the popular TV series FlashForward. The television series, based on the premise that the entire world blacks out at the same time, each individual glimpsing a snapshot of their own futures, really captured my imagination. The book differs in a number of ways, not least in the timescale for the flashforward itself; the leap into the future is a couple of months for the TV series, whereas the visions in the book are some 21 years into the future. Read more
Misery
by Stephen King
This guy knows how to spin a yarn. Although this is the first book I’ve read by Stephen King, I have always loved those stories which have been turned into movies – Carrie,The Shining,Christine,Salem’s Lot – I was inspired to dip into Stephen King having read his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (the only book on creative writing from which I have so far genuinely taken something away), intrigued to read for myself how he puts what he preaches into practice. Read more
The Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway
The tale of an aged Cuban fisherman, a young boy and a giant fish. A luckless fisherman sets sail day in, day out, coming home empty-handed for eighty-four straight days. But he never gives up hope, and the young boy always keeps the faith. On the eighty-fifth day he ventures out alone and hooks a giant marlin. Read more