Whenever, I am doing nothing else – and as often as not, even if I am – then you’ll find me reading.
History, historiography, novels, science: I devour them.
Anyway, not that anyone cares, this is what I’ve been reading or have stacked up by the bed.
Out of Eden: The peopling of the world (Stephen Oppenheimer, 2003): a synthesis of the genetic, archaeological and climatic evidence that challenges some of the familiar Eurocentric orthodoxy.
A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil (Christopher Brookmyre): bitterly twisted fun with old school friends in Scotland.
The Origins of the British: a genetic detective story (Stephen Oppenheimer, 2006): looks to challenge some of our assumptions about both Celts and Anglo-Saxons.
The Stone Woman (Tariq Ali): looking forward to getting into another instalment of the ‘Islam Quintet’.
Aberystwyth Mon Amour (Malcolm Pryce): if only the Aberystwyth I remember had been that interesting, with toffee-apple dens and Myfanwy Montez.
54 (Wu Ming, the collective formerly known as Luther Blisset): as good as Q – need I say more.
The Death of Christian Britain (Callum G Brown, 2001): challenges the conventional view that there has been a gradual process of secularisation in Britain. Instead, it argues that the core relgious culture has been destroyed by a catastrophic and abrupt cultural revolution starting in the 1960s.
The Great War for Civilisation : the conquest of the Middle East (Robert Fisk, 2005): a brilliant but enormous book based on over 300,000 notes, documents and dispatches from Robert Fisk's thirty years’ experience of reporting the Middle East. He says that every journalist in the Middle East needs to walk around with a history book in a pocket to remind him or her of why we got to where we are; why the injustices and horrors of yesteryear are engraved in people’s minds and have powerful influence on what happens next.
Rounding the Mark (Andrea Camilleri): the sardonic Inspector Montalbano, quirky characters, mystery and wit in Sicily.
The Naming Of The Dead (Ian Rankin): the damaged and politically incorrect John Rebus against the background of the G8 Summit in Edinburgh.
Scared to Live (Stephen Booth): because the setting’s local.