Liquid History ... mmm, boozy!

A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm usually a little leery when journalists write history books (the obvious counter-example being Bob Woodward, who writes about contemporary history and is a whole other bag of nails), and this one bears out why. Starting with the dubious and much commented-upon inclusion of a numeral in the title, the main thrust of Six Glasses is consistently toward accessibility rather than depth. I found it worked best when discussing areas I was less familiar with, which only serves to illustrate my point.

How to write s#!*, lesson one.

What follows is my review of a book called Assassin,by Ted Bell.  It contains strong language.  You've been warned.

Review: Atonement

The idea behind the new blog is that I'll share my reviews of whatever I've been reading, along with bits and pieces of my own writing, musings about writing, stuff ripped off from other writers, and so on.  So I'm opening with my downright hagiographic review of Ian McEwan's Atonement.  Enjoy.