I thought I'd give myself a break after The Shining and read a nice simple kids' book.

Treasure Island tells the story of Jim Hawkins, a simple inn-keeper's son, whose meeting with "The Captain" leads him into a life of adventure and danger as he sails in search of treasure with a crew full of pirates.

It's really good fun this book. It is just a great adventure book for boys. I don't mean that in a sexist way just that this story has adventure, fighting, pirates and mystery and I can really picture kids reading it and then playing pirates for the next few months, each fighting to be Jim the hero. The characters are simple without being boring and 2D and the story keeps moving at a pace so you never get bored.

One thing that maybe wasn't so great was the amount of boaty jargon used. Obviously at the time these terms would be more commonplace but reading it now I was often confused by where people were and what they were talking about. But it didn't matter that much because the basic message of "there be scary pirates coming to get you" was never really lost.

This book is great if you just want to forget all responsibilities and feel like a kid again for a few hours, and seeing as I read it while stuck on the M40 for 5 hours that seems pretty good to me.

We all know The Shining in some form, unfortunately for me my first encounter with it was the Simpsons spoof The Shinning. I then went and watched the film and was thoroughly confused, and thinking about the Simpsons. So finally I decided to give Stephen King a go and actually read The Shining.

It is very different from the film and in some ways makes more sense but in other ways makes no sense at all.

The story is of Jack Torrance who gets a job as a winter caretaker at a big mountain hotel called the Overlook. He moves to the hotel with his wife Wendy and his psychic son Danny. Already weird. Once there the hotel starts to get into everyone's head and convinces Jack to kill his family. Their only hope of survival in the completely snowed in hotel is one of the hotel's cooks, Dick, who is also luckily psychic.

So yeah that's the basic story. Bit weird. But it's all the other things around the story that get even weirder. From aggressive hedge animals to bitchy ghosts this book has a whole host of bizarre features that are sort of explained in the book by "magic psychic hotel" but that sometimes isn't enough of an explanation.

All the crazy aside, this is a good book. I've always been sceptical of scary books, I mean it's a book how scary can it be. Very is the answer. I was so tense at points reading this and I can tell you it is not a good idea to read this before bed because you will just find yourself lying there tense and expecting scary dead people.

So yeah it's bizarre and at times hard to make sense of but if you just accept that it's a really good read. There's real tension as you read about the characters in danger and the odd features just add to the madness and confusion that keeps you guessing. Go out and read it, but not at bedtime.

Of Mice and Men is a little book that tells the story of George and his simple-minded friend Lenny as they start work at a new ranch.

For only a few pages it's a really moving book. George obviously regrets getting lumbered with Lenny who means well but with his limited intellect and extraordinary strength tends to get them run out of their jobs pretty quickly. But despite the trouble he causes, George sticks with Lenny and protects him against others who don't understand him. It's really sweet the mix of frustration and love that George expresses.

Unfortunately this isn't enough for a happy ending, which I already knew going into the book. Despite having been told the story in some detail by my mum I was still gripped by this book.

So this is a really good book and I thoroughly recommend it, although I would suggest getting a copy that doesn't have a schoolkid's notes, and in some cases little drawings, in it.

This is the most recent in the Jackson Brodie series and sees the private detective undertaking a new case that gets rapidly out of hand.

He starts of trying to find an adopted woman's birth parents but one thing leads to another (and he somehow acquires a canine companion) and he ends up being dragged into a conspiracy and uncovers secrets that had long been considered buried.

It's a good read. The range of characters that tell the story build on each others' perspectives so the story slowly reveals itself to the reader but you are never told too much too early. This keeps the intrigue going throughout, especially as it isn't immediately obvious how these characters are related. And the secret they reveal is an interesting one, but I won't give anything away.

There are a few odd things in the book though that I wasn't sure added anything. For starters there is another private detective on the scene called Brodie Jackson. He just sort of appears every now and again and causes confusion but that's about it. He's not that necessary. There was also hints of another mystery throughout concerning a young girl that one of the characters acquires which is never developed and I'll be honest at times it seems a lot more exciting than the actual story. And that I think is because the actual story seems to focus on the relationships and the people not the mystery. A lot of time is spent with Jackson just thinking about people he knew and making references to things that happened to him in the previous books (which is sometimes hard to keep up with unless you have just finished the other books).

So it's a crime thriller with a focus on the detective not the crime. Not necessarily a bad thing but if you want hard crime writing you might be disappointed. However I really like Kate Atkinson's writing so I enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to her upcoming new book.

This book is told by Eve as she prepares for motherhood and reflects on her childhood.

When she was seven, Eve's mother died and she went to live with her grandparents in a tiny Welsh village. Here she discovers things about her mother and her mysterious father who has left so many bad memories in the village that she bears the brunt of the left over ill-feelings because of her resemblance to him.

But it's not only the past that provides drama and confusion in Eve's new home. She meets Daniel, a farmworker who kindles her interest, and Billy, the local oddball who lives alone in the countryside after taking a horse kick to the head. All this in the shadow of the tragic disappearance of another local girl which throws the village into fear and suspicion.

So a lot happened to little Eve in one year and the way it is told from her adult perspective tints the story with nostalgia and also offers little extras to the reader as Eve now comments on things that her younger self thought were all important but proved to be just fleeting moments. It also makes you really feel for Eve because you have so much access to her thoughts and feelings, both now and then.

So this is a book about the drama of people's everyday lives pretending to be a crime thriller. The dissapperance of the other girl pervades the narrative whilst never taking over and the way Eve tells her story, with little hints to future events like reference to a scar from "the fire", leaves the reader constantly guessing. But you never stop guessing. Because the mysteries aren't the focus of the book they aren't ever developed properly. You know loads about Eve but some of the dramatic events are skimmed over a bit or limited by her child's perspective. And the missing girl is presented as it was to Eve at the time, as something that had happened but didn't really affect her that much.

So the telling of the story is clever and you get really close to Eve as a result but if you like closure and answers you will be sorely dissappointed.

This book follows a day in the life of George, a gay English lecturer trying to get by in 1960s LA.

This is going to sound weird but my favourite things about this book were the beginning and the end. I mean the middle was good, full of biting humour, beautifully written experiences of alienation, loss and being lost, but the beginning and the end are just amazingly crafted.

The beginning had me hooked in a few words as George wakes and comes to terms with the simple fact that "I am now here". It's an amazing bit of writing that I don't think Isherwood then matches until the close of the novel (which I won't go into because, you know, spoilers).

But yeah a nice little book that offers a great snapshot into the life of a man. And it is a snapshot with all the action occuring in one day and nearly everything being rooted in the here and now. Even memories of the past are only there in relation to today.

Treated myself to a cheeky little Poirot. I love reading these books, they are short, easy to read and I can never figure the mystery out!

I got close this time, noticed a few clues but yet again the murderer's identity escaped me. Not Poirot though, he got it again.

This book is the first Poirot book in the series. It is told from the point of view of Hastings in a Watson-like narrative. He recounts his visit to stay with a friend during which his friend's elderly step-mother is murdered.

As usual there are red herrings and false turns, and as usual I was tricked by pretty much all of them.

So you beat me again Christie but I'll get it next time!

This is a collection of short stories about a party thrown by Mrs Dalloway. It is not necessarily the party, it doesn't even seem to be that important a party, but that doesn't matter.

Each story follows a different person as they prepare for and attend this party. You follow Mrs Dalloway herself as she prepares. You get to follow a woman unsure of the statement she is making with her new dress, you are privy to first meetings and first avoidings and through all these little encounters you find yourself at the heart of the party.

This collection of little snippets I think create a really good sense of the occasion as a whole. I challenge anyone to read it and not see a bit of themselves in the characters. Despite being very of the time, the experiences could apply to almost any party. We've all felt a bit out of place at a party, a bit overdressed, a bit out of our comfort zone and Woolf captures that brilliantly.

It's a tough read, I'll admit that. It's dense modernist prose that moves through time and space in a stream of consciousness that is sometimes hard to keep up with but if you can get to grips with it, it's worth reading.

A really nice little read.

So yes I saw the film last year and yes I am sort of jumping on the old Hunger Games bandwagon here but so what.

I was inspired by the film and friends' recommendations to go out and get the trilogy and it has been sat on my shelf for months because for some reason I thought if I read them too soon after seeing the film that wouldn't be cool (but also to give myself a chance to forget the plot a bit). But I finally got round to reading them and I loved them so much I munched through all three in less than a wee. As soon as I finished the first one I grabbed the second one and that had barely touched the ground before I had begun on the third one.

So yeah you could say I liked them.

I don't know what I was expecting going into this as I had liked the film but I was put off by all the hype surrounding the books in case they didn't live up to it. but they did. I was hooked all the way through. Even in the first book when I knew

I have previously read a collection of Richard Yates short stories Eleven Kinds of Loneliness  and I really enjoyed them so on the back of that and the recommendation of one of my favourite comics, Josie Long, I decided to read Revolutionary Road.

It's the story of Frank and April Wheeler as they try to escape the vapid suburban life they have found themselves living in.

The book really captures the feeling of post Second World War America that the American dream is dead. You really feel the boredom and desperation as young couples who thought they were going to change the world and become great