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: 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...