Disclaimer: off the bat, this is a book I’ve read more than once before, yet I indeed read it again within this window, and it is so good, so you’re getting it here.
Love murder mysteries? Love nursery rhymes? Love creative whimsy? This book has it all, and it has remained in my literary awareness for those reasons ever since I first came across it as a teen. Fforde has a knack for new takes on classical stories and the English language itself, giving us here an engaging take on law enforcement, the media, and business as lived in by recognisable names.
It’s an alternate take on our world with rules of its own, and I’m all about learning the rules of the unreal. Will you solve who pushed Humpty Dumpty?
It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town.
Following the pathologist's careful reconstruction of Humpty's shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant Mary Mary are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody.
As Jack and Mary stumble around the streets of Reading in Jack's…
If you get into the expanded media surrounding the glorious franchise of Doctor Who, especially the novels tied into the classic series, a name you may well come across for its reputation in lore is Lungbarrow; this notoriety is deserved.
I went in expecting the purported heaps of worldbuilding exposition to come in textbook-style heaviness, however in reality all those revelations were tactfully woven into a unique narrative of alien intrigue on Gallifrey.
I do recognise that this isn’t the easiest book to get your hands on these days, I was lucky enough to borrow it from a friend, but it’s definitely one of the best Doctor Who novels I’ve consumed thus far, a ride from beginning to end.
"Nonsense, child", retorted the Doctor. "Grandfather indeed! I've never seen you before in my life!"
All is not well on Gallifrey. Chris Cwej is having someone else's nightmares. Ace is talking to herself. So is K9. Leela has stumbled on a murderous family conspiracy. And the beleaguered Lady President, Romanadvoratrelundar, foresees one of the most tumultuous events in her planet's history.
At the root of all is an ancient and terrible place, the House of Lungbarrow in the southern mountains of Gallifrey. Something momentous is happening there. But the House has inexplicably gone missing.
Non-fiction this time (which isn’t my usual; it should say something in itself that this has made my top three) and the result of me slowly making my way through my own to-be-read pile.
I’m a science nerd; I love learning something new therefore anything that builds upon my amateur knowledgebase is likely to do it for me yet beyond that, I have to say this among those from that series I read was definitely the most engaging to me with the content it covered.
The concept of geodesics in a space-time context for instance has certainly joined my notes for what I’ll look to incorporate into my stories thanks to it, meanwhile the overall format of charming artwork accompanying the text makes it an even more pleasant experience to ingest.
A superlative, fascinating graphic account of Albert Einstein's strange world and how his legacy has been built upon since.
It is now more than a century since Einstein's theories of Special and General Relativity began to revolutionise our view of the universe. Beginning near the speed of light and proceeding to explorations of space-time and curved spaces, Introducing Relativity plots a visually accessible course through the thought experiments that have given shape to contemporary physics.
Scientists from Isaac Newton to Stephen Hawking add their unique contributions to this story, as we encounter Einstein's astounding vision of gravity as the curvature…
Gift of the Mancynn is a sci-fi adventure taking place in a reinterpreted version of our world, set against a cosmos whose timeline was recounted and morphed into Earth’s myriad of myths. You’ll follow Philip Quint, a young boy moulded to possess abilities by higher beings, along with those around him both terrestrial and otherwise, as he begins to fully appreciate why it is that he’s unique among his peers, the purpose he’s expected to fill in the coming weeks, why it is that that mightn’t be the righteous outcome.
Embrace a voyage commencing around our world before darker days set in, or maybe delve into the Brethren Lords, inspiration for humanity’s Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as our entrance into the wider powers at play.
