I find it puzzling that this was a bestseller when it was published in 1932. It’s the - very readable - story of a dirt-poor northern Chinese farmer in 1910 or so, who starts the story with nothing but a small plot of land. He then takes a wife and begins a family, survives a …
Ossian’s Ride
Not only a renowned scientist – he coined the term Big Bang – Fred Hoyle also wrote science fiction. (The Black Cloud is still one of my favourites.) But this slim number, while touting itself as SF, has practically nothing to do with the genre until the last chapter, when it flings in a few …
The Outsider
This starts so well. A man is arrested for the gruesome murder of a child. His DNA and fingerprints are all over the scene of the crime. Yet he can prove, without a sliver of doubt, that at the time of the murder he was 70 miles away at a teachers’ conference. By the time …
Very Naughty Boys
Handmade Films were behind some of the most striking movies of the 1980s: Life of Brian, The Missionary, A Private Function, Mona Lisa and Bellman & True. Plus several weird (Track 29), misjudged (Privates on Parade) and just rather tired (Water) failures. This is a brisk, very readable account of how it all started (George …
