2008 CQN Book list

Richard North Paterson and Christpher brookmyre are the big movers and shakers this year.
I will put them into my blog when I find out how to edit blogger.
Sport
Bobby Lennox - Thirty Miles From Paradise
Mark Guidi - The inner sanctum
Tommy Burns - Tommy Twists, Tommy Turns, Tommy Burns.
Tony Cascarino - Full Time
Paolo Di Canio - The Autobiography
Adrian Chiles - We don't know what we're doing
Neil Lennon - Man and Bhoy
Duncan Hamilton - Provided you dont kiss me-20 years with Brian Clough
John Foot - Calcio. The History of Italian football
Non - Fiction
Robert Frisk -The Great War For Civilisation, The Conquest Of The Middle East
Craig Murray - Murder in Samarkand, (368 pages) by Craig Murray ex British Ambassador to Uzbekistan who discovered that information extracted under torture was being used by Blair's government in the "War on Terror".
Denis O'Hearn - Nothing but an unfinished song.A biography about Bobby Sands. Brilliantly researched and written.
T.J English - The Havana Mob:Gangsters,Gamblers,Showgirls and Revolutionaries
Thomas Friedman's - From Beirut to Jersusalem.Insightful account of the early days of the conflict in his book " It's a wee bit dated as it's based on his personal Beirut experiences in the '80s at the height of the Lebanese civil war. He then is transferred to Jersusalem and in the second part of his book, he then looks at the conflict more from an Israeli perspective. It will help put some perspective and background into the present positions on both sides. It is well over a decade since I read it, but I couldn't put it down, especially as I had been in the region during his time in Beirut.
Lawrence Wright - The Looming Tower. The history of Al Qaeda
Gerald Clark - Capote. Biography of Truman Capote
Peter Biskind - "Easy Riders Raging Bulls". The story of 1970s Hollywood.
Anthony Beevor - Berlin. The last harrowing days of the Nazis.
Jeremy Bowen - Six Days" an account of the Six Day War
Markus Zusak - The Book Thief by is still the best read I've had for many a long month.
Orhan Pamuk - If you want some authentic Turkish perspective, try anything by. Istanbul is a magnificent memoir of, er, Istanbul, and My Named Is Red is just the thing if you like historical mystery and adventure stories like The Name Of The Rose. Not easy, but worth the effort.
James Lee Burke - The Tin Roof Blowdown is out in paperback by the time you go, buy it. A great book written around the New Orleans Hurricane. Brilliant.
Thomas Cahill - How the Irish saved Civilization
Giles Tremlett - Ghosts of Spain
John Hooper - The Spaniards
Andrew Smith - Moondust: In search for the men who fell to earth. About a writer tracking down and interviewing the surviving Apollo astronauts. A fantastic read.
John O' Farrell - "An Utterly Impartial History of Britain - Or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots In Charge"...or anything else by him really.
Fiction
Norman Mailer - Oswald's Tale Assassination of JFK as imagined by Mailer.
John Connolly's - series about Charlie Parker (fictional not the musician)
Harlan Coben - The Woods and Just One Look and Promise MeChristopher Brookmyre - All but special mention to One fine day in the middle of the night, A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away, "All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses An Eye".
Douglas Lindsey - Barney Thomson' series by which are set in Glasgow
Andrew O'Hagen - The Atlantic Ocean. His latest book is a collection of essays about Britain and America.
David Maine - The Flood (USA the Preservationist)
Richard North Paterson - Protect & Defend, Balance of Power, Silent Witness, Conviction. The race and ExileProtect and Defend particularly gripping because of it's subject matter - an Irish catholic teenage girl in USA, who is pregnant and discovers the baby is essentially developing without a brain. Her parents go to court to force her to give birth, whilst she wants to abort - I certainly felt for every character in the book. To me it's a must read.The Race very topical with the Obama / Clinton situation. Exile is a fascinating read about Jews and Arabs but in a novel.
Joseph O’Connor - Redemption Falls is, loosely, a follow up to "Star of the Sea" and is as much about the Irish diaspora as the American West toward the end of the Civil War period. The character O'Keefe is loosely based on Thomas Francis Meagher, an Irish republican who made good in America following an escape from Australia as a deportee.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's - Purple Hibiscus about a clash between old rural religious traditions in Nigeria with paternal catholicism, is even better than "Half of a Yellow Sun".
Bill Bryson - The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid is very funny and very kind hearted about nostalgia for the 1950's . I'm not usually a big fan of Bryson's. He can turn a joke and reads easily but can get a bit repetitive. Here, where he is writing a loose autobiography, he is on top form.
Martin Cruz Smith's - Stalin's Ghost - an Inspector Renko novel
Ronan Bennett - Zugswang a crime novel set during a chess tournament in pre-revolutionary Russia. Both are very quick and undemanding reads.
Louis de Bernières - captain correllis mandolin ...was great
Steph Penney - a tenderness of wolves.That was a vg read set in Canada at the time of the Hudson Bay Co
Ian McEwan- anything by him but mentioned - Saturday/The Innocent and Enduring Love(def not a birds book)
George Mackay Brown - Any of his short stories a Catholic convert and Celtic supporter.
HV Morton - In Search of Ireland. This is hard to trace but worth every penny.
Iain Banks - Matter
Nigel Tranters - books on here a while back(had never heard of him), have just finished reading The Wallace and in a word, Marvellous. Now for the Bruce trilogy.
Brendan Graham - The Whitest Flower (about a familys suffering during the famine and then being shipped to Canada on a famine ship)
Patrick MacGill - Children Of the Dead End by - about a lad born on a small farm in ireland then came to the west of scotland where he worked on farms, tramped the roads, worked as a navie on the Hydro Electric Scheme etc, etc.
Lawrence Block - Scudder and Burglar series are good. The Burglar ones are more light-hearted and of a holiday nature but Scudder's books as an alcoholic New York PI are excellent.
Stuart Macbride - At the lighter end of the scale, Cold Granite by is a good read. Based in Aberdeen and really takes the p*** out of the place at times.
Evelyn Waugh - My all time favourite read is Brideshead Revisited By and I'd recommend that to anyone.
Iain Rankin - Mortal Causes and Black & Blue
Marina Lewycka - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.a bit odd, but great fun
Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Highly recommended.
Mark Barrowcliffe - 'The Elfish Gene is very funny in parts,it's about growing up in the Midlands and spending your adolescence playing' Dungeons and Dragons'. It has some sharp insights into male adolescent psychology, including the kind of behaviour that crops up on CQN from time to time.
CJSansom - The series of thrillers set in Tudor England by featuring the hunchback lawyer Shardlake are worth investigating; I think the historical research is sound enough so you can learn a bit of history without reading a history book, if you get what I mean.Can fully back up the CJ Sansom books top quality, also gives insight into what happens over in Mordor everyday.
Matthew Pearl - The Dante Club
Sebastain Faulks -Engleby is a return to form (about time)Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex is very enjoyable.
Lorenzo Caraterra - Sleepers