Tuesday 31 August 2010

Flying Finish by Dick Francis

 Lord Henry Gray is a reluctant aristocrat, holiding down a desk job at a the Anglia Bloodstock Agency, much to his family's disapproval, and dodging his mother's efforts at marrying him off for money escaping to his true passions as an amateur jockey and pilot.  When he tires of the desk job and takes on a job as head groom for Yardman's equine transport business he becomes involved with a shady world of smuggling, and meets the beautiful Gabriella in Milan
Toast by Nigel Slater

Monday 30 August 2010

Apocalypse Nerd by Peter Bagge
Before Scotland by Alistair Moffat
Charley's War 2 June - 1 August 1916 by Pat Mills & Joe Colquhoun
The Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende
Kraken by China Mieville
On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
Picture Perfect by Jodie Picoult
Scapa by James Miller
- Having visited Orkney in the summer of 2010 I naturally wanted to know more about the modern archaeology of these ancient islands that was all around me, abandoned gun placements, wrecks sticking out of the water, the Italian Chapel, a homage to the Sisitine Chapel made out of two Nissen huts by Italian prisoners of war, and their creation, the awe inspiring Churchill Barriers, causways that link the lower islands and close off the great natural harbour of Scapa Flow.  This is a great book, authoratitive in style, full of pictures and covering the Navy's use of Scapa Flow as a major anchorage in the First and Second World wars.
Sum by David Eagleman