Tales from the Bedroom Floor

London: John Murray, 2005 Why is this book on the bedroom floor?: This is another of the bargains I picked up in the library booksale when I worked there. The price inside showed that it would have cost one lucky punter 40p, so I got it for half that because of library privilege. About the Author: A prolific writer and television producer, Stephen Walker has won numerous awards for his work including an Emmy, a BAFTA and the Rose d'Or at Montreux. He is currently working on a book surrounding the events of Major Yuri Gagarin's flight into space. Plot: A tense account of one of the most vivid events in history, when the city of Hiroshima suffered a spectacular bombing raid, destroying the city and ushering in the start of the nuclear age. Review: On a bright, clear morning, high above the mountains which surrounded the port of Hiroshima, air raid sirens began to shriek. Although this was not an uncommon occurrence, this particular air raid differed in three important respects...

London: Yellow Jersey, 2016 Why is this book on the bedroom floor?: I’m somewhat of a collector of football books, but only if they give me some insight into the theoretical aspect of the game; the why rather than the what. And what better way to find out how to win stuff than listen to the Germans? And it was a Christmas present from my Amazon list, if any fans of mine are feeling generous. About the Author: A former law student, Raphael Honigstein moved to London in the early nineteen-nineties. He is the English football correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the German football correspondent for The Guardian and talkSPORT . Most recently, Honigstein has become a major contributor to The Athletic and a regular presence on BT Sport . He is also the author of Englischer Fussball: A German View of Our Beautiful Game . His Twitter handle is @honigstein . Plot: How does a team win a World Cup, particularly if they are paradoxically a perennial favourite but expected to fail? D...

London: Profile, 2014 Why is this book on the bedroom floor? - I spotted this in a charity shop. It was the spine which caught my attention, proving that you can’t judge a book by its cover but you can certainly get arrested by it. About the author - Gaston Dorren is a language writer from the Netherlands. He speaks six languages and reads in a number of others. Lingo was based on his book Language Tourism , published in Dutch in 2012 and subsequently published in different languages. He continued the theme of Lingo by writing Babel , about the twenty most spoken languages in the world today. He seems like a very engaging and enthusiastic bloke, at least based on his website at https://languagewriter.com/. The English edition was translated by Alison Edwards, and there were contributions by Jenny Audring and Frauke Watson. Plot - Around continental Europe in sixty languages, Lingo tells us something interesting beyond the vocab for each and every one. Review - In my seco...

N.B. This is not my copy. Mine is in much better condition but I haven't got a decent scan of the cover. London: Secker & Warburg, 1936 (this ed. 1954) Why is this book on the bedroom floor? - I must admit this is a bit of a cheat - I’ve read this book several times already, but not since I was at university. But my wife gave me a gorgeous copy of the book on the morning of our wedding as a present, and I just had to read it again. It came from the estate of Harold Whitaker, an animator who worked on Animal Farm , When the Wind Blows and The Twelve Tasks of Asterix , all of which I adore, and also The Poddington Peas , which I merely admire. This edition originally cost 12 shillings and 6. Worth every penny. About the Author - Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name of George Orwell, is one of Britain’s most-admired literary figures. A novelist, journalist and essayist, his adventurous life took him from Imperial India, Revolutionary Spain, and many ...