This is where all of my book reviews start. Each review is on its own page; but the menu of reviews stays with you throughout your visit to the book reviews section.

My reviews

Another good Michael Crichton, Next; another but not quite so good Mark Haddon, A Spot of Bother and, a commisioned read, bookkeeping and accounting book by John Passmore, Accounting for a Better Life.

Michael Crichton's book Congo is a good read but not as good as the later novels of his that I have read; and John Harvey's Lonely Hearts is an average British detective story with an archetypical British detective at the centre of it!

I really don't know how I got to the end of this book as I found it a dreadful read, especially the first half of the book. There was just something in the style of writing and the storyline that left me absolutely cold.

Chris Zook has written a good and serious book on the hidden assets of the company. It well researched, well written and well worth the time taken to read it. It will give you many insights through the 25 cases that Zook presents.

My fifth Dean Koontzread and although the book was published in 1992, it hasn't aged except that had it been written today he would have used mobile phones quite a bit I think! A good story, very well written.

A good rant from Jeremy Paxman, The English: a portrait of a people. Lots of excellent quotations and pithy sayings to prove a hypothesis that the English are different ... you might not agree! Worth a read.

Yet another commissioned review: The Thursday Night Letters by PK Munroe. Exactly along the lines and style of the Henry Root Letters, you will enjoy these if you enjoyed the Root nonsense!

Another commissioned book, The 90 Minute MBA by Arnold S Grundvig Jr. for the small business person, a good and vital read; but for the serious MBA student it won't work. Bearing that in mind, I do recommend it because it does contain a lot of useful insights and examples.

For The Toyota Way by Jeffrey K Liker, I give it the highest recommendation that you must read this book if you are studying business from any point of view, not only manufacturing. You will find the contents of the book useful whoever you are and whatever you are doing. It is also very well written and there are many examples to think about.

The Long Tail: the new economics of culture and commerce by Chris Anderson has come as major revelation to me and warned that any serious business person or to read. I have to say though, that the examples used became very tentative and a little bit tedious but the message is very powerful.

A book that may have changed my life for ever: Tescopoly by Andrew Simms. I didn't like the style or some of the sentiments but the message is powerful. You must read this book as it applies to all major retailers across the world.

Richard Branson's autobiography, Losing my Virginty, is a revelation that includes what to do, what not to do; and insights into ballooning around the world. SpyCatcher by Peter Wright is the book that reminded us of the phrase to be economical with the truth and that Margaret Thatcher's hapless government tried to ban: it's another revelatory book that is oldnow but is still well worth a read.

By coincidence I bought the biographies of my two all time favourite football managers within a week or so of each other. From 1996 comes Jack Charlton's autobiography and from 2002 comes Brian Clough's. Different styles but both are must reads for people of a mind like mine!

Nick Hornby book two for me, How to be Good; and another good read: if you have recently gone through or are going through a painful splitup, don't read it, though.

Another Dean Koontz thriller, Darkness Comes: worth a read but if you felt Koontz' Odd Thomas was enough of its kind then you won't want to read this one as there are great similrities between then. A good and quick read though.

Two books at once now. Nick Hornby's nice little roustabout story About a Boy and Gerald Seymour's rather samey SAS story involving the old enemy, the Russians, Traitor's Kiss.

Another old man: Winston Churchill. I have read Roy Jenkins' mighty 900 page tome ... see why I question whether Jenkins wrote it and whether I like churchill or not!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: please read this story: I think it cost me £2 to buy (with the bonus stories of The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth thrown in). Hardly a bank buster is it?

Want to make a shed load of money by way of reading a good and well written book on the subject of timing the market? Then read Timing the Market by Deborah Weir!

Alan Bennett thought he was dying of cancer and it concentrated his mind: Untold Stories was the lengthy but readable result. He is still in the land of the living!

Dean Koontz has done it again with Odd Thomas. Odd Thomas sees dead people and things he calls bodachs. He tells a story of Elvis Presley and goings on in a tragic world with some sparkling dialogue. Well worth a read.

I have now shortened this page considerably by chopping off all the brief introductions that I make make that are older than around about nine months. I know it's like losing a friend but there you are!

17^th November 2007

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