Rating: 3.75* of fiveThe Publisher Says: Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he wiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions-including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, her...
For those who told me that Amazing Disgrace wasn't as funny as Cooking With Fernet Branca: OMG, wrong. Other than the cover image / design (which, sadly, is ugly and stupid), this book was every bit as awesome as the first one. And I srsly can't wait to read Rancid Pansies!This is vol 2 in the Ge...
There are a lot of great things about this book: a deliciously queer lens, a historical sensibility, and a narrative strength. In other words, the main character, Jayjay, embodies a quirky, playful challenge to the early 20th century cultural norms, the story moves from pre World War II England ...
In a European city just after World War II, the odd curator of a greenhouse garden welcomes guests to savor his tropical plants, which open only at night. In his care, the exotic species have survived the war, and now he struggles to keep the greenhouse's boilers going in the fuel-starved privati...
You’d think this wouldn’t work: a rich white Brit guy goes native in the Philippines, gets away from it all and fishes for a living, writes memoir. But J H-P is a gifted writer, and this book is a splendid success on many levels. Amid naturalist observation, autobiographical narrative, philippine...
This is a very good read. At first I was a bit put off by the author's literary style. He tended to over do some of his similes, analogies and image portrayals. The first chapter is a largely technical treatise (aboard a British vessel doing sea floor mapping for USGS), so I guess he wanted to...
James Hamilton-Paterson's first collection of stories was published in 1986: in a prefatory note the author claims inspiration from the 'putative memory' of a Cynic philosopher whose 'brilliant crabbiness' saw him exiled to the foothills of the titular Mount Dog. The collection that follows is a ...
(The ominously rising breeze, the horrid realisation that the low strip of dark cloud on the horizon is actually an onrushing wall of water hundreds of feet high.) Treasure hunters, especially, must all have entertained the fancy of strolling offshore among the wrecks and hulks drying in the suns...
When writing up his notes he would lean his head on one turned fist and suddenly the thumb propping his brow ridge would skid, together with a fold of flesh, over an apparently increasing lump. The Neanderthal of the future. Perhaps this same bony ball, by some absurd series of flukes and chance,...
In terms of cost, hotel phones are like restaurant wines: simply the proprietor’s way of hastening his early retirement to the Virgin Islands. Mobile phones, especially abroad, are equally ruinous. Nevertheless, a mobile phone is what I am using to keep in touch with the indispensable Frankie. He...
Zoe’s absence alarmed him; he wondered how much her mother knew about last night’s escapade. Rapturously treed as they had been by Father McGoohan and colleague, they had not been able to change their clothes and leave the pagoda much before two in the morning. They found the Nirvana’s kitchen do...
French ace Georges Guynemer pictured days before he went missing in September 1917 with 54 victories. His body was never found. The stick-thin legs and thousand-yard stare betray the true cost of becoming a national hero.