Burning Bright by Helen Dunmore My rating: 4 of 5 stars ‘Burning Bright’ was an interesting read – this one book could be used in a classroom to teach how to write fiction, and how not to. Some of the writing was excellent, quick paced and descriptive, then the next chapter would try too hard…

The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes by Jack M. Bickham My rating: 3 of 5 stars Some solid advice, but I found it was too heavily wrapped in fabricated anecdotes and a know-it-all writing style. I skimmed the majority of the last third, it was getting too hard to read. In my opinion, I…

Lazarus Is Dead by Richard Beard My rating: 5 of 5 stars I had the pleasure of meeting Richard Beard at a recent writer’s conference. He came across as intelligent and passionate about good writing, so I was curious to see whether his own writings hit the mark. And for me, the answer is a…

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book surprised me. It’s marketed as a novel, an adult fairy tale, yet it reads more like a young-adult short story – all well and good apart from the adult novel price tag. That complaint aside, it’s…

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was a fun whodunnit, slightly spoiled by the fact that my mother-in-law gave me this for Christmas last year, only for us to flop down on the sofa with our turkey-filled stomachs to watch the television adaption in the afternoon.…

Rewrite Right! : Your Guide to Perfectly Polished Prose: 2nd Edition by Jan Venolia My rating: 5 of 5 stars I’ve been reading this book on and off for over a decade. I bought it as a single man, living in Boston, Mass., and finished it with my second child soon to be born, back…

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is the first Man Booker short-listed book that I struggled with (bare in mind I haven’t read Will Self’s Umbrella which I’m expecting to be the second). More of a novella that a novel, the clunky text, maybe to contrast against the poet’s…

Atonement by Ian McEwan My rating: 3 of 5 stars I struggled with this book, almost laying it to rest on at least a couple of occasions. The prose was so bloated in the first one hundred pages, paragraphs of nothingness spanning multiple pages, that it became a chore to read. Several friends suggested I…