Dickens, Charles (1843) A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol (1843) Charles Dickens Penguin Classics, 92pp The timing could not have been better. I finished reading Barnaby Rudge five days before Christmas and the next fictional work Dickens published chronologically was A Christmas Carol, on the 19 December 1843: I read it for the first time on Christmas Day night 2009. Now, [...]

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Dalek Empire II (2003)

Dalek Empire II (2003) Nicholas Briggs Big Finish Starring: Mark McDonnell, Gareth Thomas, Sarah Mowatt After a break of over a year, the second series of Dalek Empire was released by Big Finish. As the first series finished, Alby Brooks and Kalendorff had been taken prisoner by the Daleks as they hunted for Susan Mendez, [...]

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Dickens, Charles (1841) Barnaby Rudge or A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty

Barnaby Rudge or A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty (1841) Charles Dickens Oxford University Press, 634pp Barnaby Rudge, the second serial from Master Humphrey’s Clock (the first being The Old Curiosity Shop), was Dickens’s first idea for a novel, but was published as his fifth. He conceived of it alongside The Pickwick Papers, and [...]

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Roberto Bolaño: The Last Interview & Other Conversations (2009)

Roberto Bolaño: The Last Interview & Other Conversations (2009) Introduction by Marcela Valdes Melville House Publishing 123pp As regular readers of this blog will know, I have a great admiration for the Chilean poet and novelist Roberto Bolaño. Bolaño died in 2003, leaving behind him a series of novels (some already published, others forthcoming through [...]

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Patterson, James (2008) Cross Country

Cross Country (2008) James Patterson Arrow Books, 406pp Off ill for a month with a nasty, virulent virus (aka The Flu), I found my concentration lacking, but still desirous to read, I picked up the latest volume from “The World’s Bestselling Thriller Writer” (as the cover deems him), James Patterson. This is the thirteenth Alex [...]

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Doctor Who #41: Nekromanteia (2003)

Doctor Who: Nekromanteia (2003) Austen Atkinson Big Finish #41 Starring: Peter Davison, Nicola Bryant, Caroline Morris How unfortunate Austen Atkinson is: to have his debut story for Big Finish follow Jubilee. Following that masterwork is an impossible task: made doubly worse when the story you have is at best workmanlike, at worst derivative and dull. [...]

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Doctor Who #40: Jubilee (2003)

Doctor Who: Jubilee (2003) Robert Shearman Big Finish #40 Starring: Colin Baker, Maggie Stables The reputation of this Big Finish adventure is what drew me to the range. Jubilee, the fortieth story in the series range, was adapted by its writer for Russell T. Davies as Dalek – the story where Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor met [...]

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Doctor Who: No Place Like Home (2003)

Doctor Who: No Place Like Home (2003) Iain McLaughlin Big Finish Starring: Peter Davison, Caroline Morris Given away with Doctor Who Monthly, No Place Like Home is a half hour adventure with Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor and Caroline Morris’s recently introduced companion, Erimem. Erimem is being given the guided tour of the TARDIS, implying that [...]

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Doctor Who #39: Bang-Bang-A-Boom! (2002)

Doctor Who: Bang-Bang-A-Boom! (2002) Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman Big Finish #39 Starring: Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford In 2001, Big Finish released the panto-themed Doctor Who adventure, The One Doctor – obviously successfully, for now we have the second Doctor Who panto – Bang-Bang-A-Boom! The plot is sheer simplicity: at the Intergalactic Song Contest [...]

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Orwell, George (1935) Burmese Days

Burmese Days (1935) George Orwell Penguin Modern Classics, 320pp George Orwell is best remembered for two novels, Animal Farm and 1984, and perhaps his nonfiction works, A Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia. A few years ago I read Animal Farm, my first introduction to Orwell, but it has taken me over two [...]

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