★★★★★
391 pages • Headpress • October, 2011 [PB]

Tim Bennett-Goodman learns more than he ever wanted to know about the underworld of adult vintage paperbacks.

If this book sends you racing straight down to your local secondhand bookshop in search of cheap, lurid treasures from the past, then I’ll feel as if I’ve done my job..

★★★★★
260 pages • Quartet • June 01, 2011 [PB]

Tim Bennett-Goodman takes pleasure in Death in Bordeaux, which charts the working and personal life of a police detective from the fall of France through the establishment and early days of the Vichy Republic.

Massie doesn’t shrink from the casual homophobia of the times. Even the most sympathetic of his characters find homosexuality impossible to comprehend, if not actually repellant.

★★★★★
287 pages • Headpress • June 23, 2011 [PB]

Tim Bennett-Goodman finds The Hellhound Sample, a family saga that spans the years 1932-2004, to be an energetic and touching read.

The story of young Calvin’s struggle to overcome the handicap of being a closet bi-sexual in an aggressively (indeed, murderously) homophobic rap world is both fascinating and touching.

★★★★★
608 pages • Bloomsbury • April 4, 2011 [HB]

In his Epistle to the Reader, AC Grayling sums up his work as “…a text made from all times for all times, its aspiration and aim the good for humanity and the good of the world.” A modest undertaking, then, says, Tim Bennett-Goodman.

The Good Book is a work which, it seems to me, will reward dipping into from time to time – for consolation, meditation or stimulation – just as one would (or would have) the Bible itself, rather than necessarily being read cover-to-cover.

★★★★★
256 pages • Harry N. Abrams, Inc. • November 2nd, 2009 [HB]

A beautiful book of photographs that charts the life of writer Gore Vidal, with the sardonic commentary one would expect from its author.

The format frees Vidal to bring his comic asides to the fore. It is a romp through a fascinating life. The addition of newspaper articles, original book covers, and letters adds a dimension to the photographs that enliven it.

★★★★★
144 pages • Dark Horse • September 9th, 2009 [PB]

A collection of issues 21-25 from the Season Eight comic books. But does it translate to the medium, asks Christopher Bryant?

In Predators and Prey there are five stories and five different authors. They range from the dramatic and emotional depths synonymous with the series to the esoteric geek-fest moments that were restrained by the medium of television.

★★★★★
261 pages • Fourth Estate • July 23rd, 2009 [PB]

A captivating novel about the nature of truth and identity set in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Hamilton exhibits a genuine warmth and sympathy for his characters, for all their flaws and failings, which is very life-affirming. He understands how difficult it is for adults ever to be truly ‘grown-up’; however capable and stable they may appear on the surface, a lost, frightened child cowers not far beneath.

★★★★★
256 pages • Bloomsbury • July 6th, 2009 [PB]

The author of Snow Falling on Cedars is the story of the life and death of reclusive John William Barry, as told by his loyal friend and confidant, Neil Countryman.

Their story forms a meditation on modern urban life in the West – hamburger world as John William scathingly describes it – with its loss of contact with, and profit-driven destruction of, the natural world.

★★★★★
278 pages • Duckworth Overlook • May 21st, 2009 [PB]

No matter what you think of the controversial PETA, Dan Matthews memoir is a fascinating and funny insight into the life a committed campaigner.

“I was rattled by the thought that I had been attacked after class as a teen for being gay, and now as an adult for being a carrot; I guess you could say that I’ve courted hostility for being both a fruit and a vegetable.”

★★★★★
408 pages • Vintage • September 4th, 2008 [HB]

Peter Ackroyd’s imagined life of Victor Frankenstein fascinates Tim Bennett-Goodman.

“Reason? What has reason to do with this? The pact between us is of fire and blood.”