The British have apparently long been fascinated with crime and criminals, from the crowds that would gleefully gather to watch public executions hundreds of years ago right up to the Sunday night telly watcher, inhaling the latest series of Sherlock. In A Very British Murder, Lucy Worsley – she who’s also regularly on telly as one of its more engaging historians – looks at the British appetite for murders most foul, and how those appetites have affected and evolved our most popular forms of entertainment. […]
In which everyone gets the clap
Written with an easy style that informs as well as entertains, City of Sin is an eagle-eyed view of the English branch of the world’s oldest profession through the ages, from the first girls brought in chains to our shores for the sport of the Romans, right up to modern sex workers advertising on the internet, scoring publishing deals and causing the Daily Mail to work themselves into self-righteous froths. Taking in those who chose to enter the profession as well as those forced into […]
Debut Novel: Must Read if you dig character development and SVU
This book was on my radar because Tod of the “Literary Disco” podcast, of which I am so fond, would not stop talking about it. It was his favorite book of 2014 so I convinced by book club it was a good pick for July, cuz you know, July. They were hoping for something light and fun. Sorry people. Henderson’s debut novel is masterfully written. The story begins with Pete, a social worker in Montana trying to defuse a violent situation between a mother and […]
“That’s what the cool people who mock breeders don’t understand: that there can be a love bigger than two people.”
After breezing through the David Wong books, it seemed a natural next step to check out his Cracked colleague, Wayne Gladstone. I can’t say I came away from this book with near the excitement or sense of joy. There’s something lacking, here. Specifically, the first three quarters of the book leave much to be desired. In the world of Notes from the Internet Apocalypse, the internet has mysteriously disappeared, leaving the world in, well, pretty much the same state it’s currently in. Ignore the “apocalypse” […]