VH on Books

Kerry Greenwood has written over 40 novels and six non-fiction books. When she is not writing, Kerry is an advocate in a magistrate’s court for the Legal Aid Commission. The jacket of this book states that she lives in Australia with a registered wizard! (Well, that’s what it says!) Blood and Circuses belongs in the […]

The Last Runaway is Chevalier’s 7th novel. She’s had considerable success in different fields of novel writing, with the best known of her books so far being The Girl with a Pearl Earring. Many of the reviews say that The Last Runaway is her best since that block-buster. Certainly the cover of The Girl with […]

I want to start by putting this book into context. It is not a Stephen King or a Hilary Mantel. Each genre must be considered on its own merits, and this is neither a horror story, nor a piece of fictionalised history. For many years the murder mystery was written in a certain detached way, […]

The Hunger Games is the first of a trilogy written by well-known American children’s writer, Suzanne Collins. She’s been around for quite a while, and had an earlier success with a series of books called Gregor and the Underworld, etc. These are fantasies about an eleven year old boy plunged into a war featuring rats, […]

This book is dedicated to the great and wonderful art of cheering us all up. It works for me, anyway. I can understand that some people will hate it. They will think it trivial, because on the face of it, it doesn’t tackle any of the most pressing political problems that face the world. Others […]

I didn’t read The Railway Children as a child. I didn’t come across a biography of her as one of the founders of the Fabian Society, either, though really I don’t know why not for she sounds a most fascinating personality and I read as many biographies of that period as I could lay my […]

Hands up all those who spotted that this was a modern Gothic tale, straight out of the genre dating back to Dracula, Frankenstein and the Castle of Otranto? Here are all the usual ingredients; the sheltered and somewhat naïve heroine journeying to an isolated destination, an extraordinary mansion or castle, the dark of winter, unhelpful […]

I chose this book because it’s the latest big sensation to hit the market, because it’s always worth looking at a blockbuster which has come from a first-time writer and lastly because of the effect it has had on young people’s attitude to the opposite sex. Doing research on the internet – and trusting that […]

I chose this book because the owner of our local bookshop recommended it. That is not in itself a good reason for selecting a book for the Book reading club. A book can be produced under tragic circumstances and still not be worthy of attention. We can sympathise with someone who has written the book […]

This is a talk I gave recently to my book group about The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I came to the CS Lewis children’s books only after I’d grown up and long after I’d read his adult books. I’d devoured Tolkien, but for some reason it had never occurred to me to place […]

He’s topped the bestseller list times without number and broken records in the publishing world all over the place. Two of his book series have made it into American films and television; the Alex Cross books featuring Morgan Freeman, and the Women’s Murder Club series. Also one of the Maximum books. I would like to […]

Historical crime writers have a well-worn track leading down memory lane, providing a slightly different form of escapism for writer and reader from the rather down-beat stories of contemporary life. You only have to look at the success of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes to see that nostalgia sells. If you can transport […]