Phil James

A nobody becomes, one day, a “death merchant”.
I've found a new favourite author, someone who makes me laugh as much as Terry Pratchett, Tom Robbins, or Douglas Adams yet wears his learning very lightly.
I never felt that I was being lectured at, but saw underneath the hip cynicism a sacred respect for the dying.

Over the space of one night a woman gives her confession to the policeman she's known from childhood. Slowly the history of the island sugarcane plantation, slavery and intertwined, incestuous, ambiguous relationships come to light.

I was full of trepidation at the heaviness of the subject here, but in the end I am very glad I read it. He investigates depression from every angle including the view from his own break-ups, and talks to all sorts of people in many walks of life and parts of the world.

Beautiful colour and design for a comic, but the story lacks in originality.

Audio book. Horrible voice of the narrator put me off it.

Wonderful. I was wary of Pynchon for a long time. A reputation for denseness or difficulty, obscurity, but this was like a burst of light. OK, I couldn't say what the story was about in every detail, but it enjoyable in it's self and also for the gap it filled in my literary education.
Drugged up, psychotic conspiracy theories have never been written so well.

This is a re-reading but the first time with this particular edition. The Royal Shakespeare Company Modern Library edition is just beautifully clear. When I picked this up I just had to buy it and now intend to get hold of them all.
It's the combination of modern font, clear, unfussy layout and the obvious accessibility of the notes on the page that make it so much easier to understand and enjoy.
The scholarship brings out all the earthy, bawdy double meanings and brings old Shakespeare to life.

Hilarious black humour. Dark, dark humour but the satire is buzzing and sparking with ideas. As nearly always, in a Coupland book the ideas are more important than plot or even character, but after just slogging through Don Quixote, this was exactly what I needed.

I'm re-reading this so I that can read the rest of the trilogy. I was lucky enough to find “spook country” second-hand and I'll have to get hold of his latest somehow.

I was glad to win a copy of this book even though when I applied I didn't realise it was for kids or young adults.
Although I'm a long way from being a young adult the book immediately appealed to me. An overview of world history that avoids an overly Euro-centric view and yet doesn't become too PC. Illustrated with watercolour paintings that avoid most of the stereotypes too, I wondered whether it would attract the ipod generation. I needn't have worried. My 12 year old son and 16 year old daughter both asked to read it after I was finished.

If you read a quick synopsis of this, you might think it was a bit grim. Middle-age desperation and colon cancer among musical nostalgia.
But this isn't just a re-hash of the Commitments story, just aged, it's as if the characters have been living real lives all this time. So real I feel I knew them.
This book made me laugh and cry, and left me with a warm glow. I love it when I enjoy a book so much.

[ Lots of swearing, of course, it is Roddy Doyle]

Quote from TV comedy “Father Ted”
Father Dougal: I wouldn't know Ted, you big bollocks!
Father Ted: [astounded] I'm sorry!?
Father Dougal: I said I wouldn't know Ted, you big bollocks!
Father Ted: Have you been reading those Roddy Doyle books again, Dougal!?
Father Dougal: I have, yeah Ted, you big gobshite!