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PhilJames

PhilJames

Pattern Recognition

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson I'm re-reading this so I that can read the rest of the trilogy. I was lucky enough to find "spook country" second-hand and I'll have to get hold of his latest somehow.

A Dirty Job

A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore A nobody becomes, one day, a "death merchant".
I've found a new favourite author, someone who makes me laugh as much as Terry Pratchett, Tom Robbins, or Douglas Adams yet wears his learning very lightly.
I never felt that I was being lectured at, but saw underneath the hip cynicism a sacred respect for the dying.

All Families are Psychotic

All Families are Psychotic - Douglas Coupland Hilarious black humour. Dark, dark humour but the satire is buzzing and sparking with ideas. As nearly always, in a Coupland book the ideas are more important than plot or even character, but after just slogging through Don Quixote, this was exactly what I needed.

The Polished Hoe

The Polished Hoe - Austin Clarke Over the space of one night a woman gives her confession to the policeman she’s known from childhood. Slowly the history of the island sugarcane plantation, slavery and intertwined, incestuous, ambiguous relationships come to light.

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression - Andrew Solomon I was full of trepidation at the heaviness of the subject here, but in the end I am very glad I read it. He investigates depression from every angle including the view from his own break-ups, and talks to all sorts of people in many walks of life and parts of the world.