I’m sure this will be my book of the year even though it’s only August. I’m not sure about the Catch 22 reference, I think it may be faster paced and actually an easier read, but, it is as powerful and funny, and it resonates and affects your thinking about war and these young men that fight it. I like this quote from Fountain’s editor, “This book has disrupted and unsettled my assumptions exposed my prejudices. It’s a rare book that can do this and make you laugh, too.” And it does these things brilliantly. I think this is one of those books that will be read for years, if not generations, to come.

- Ben 

I really enjoyed The Mandrake File it is a top shelf espionage thriller. Fascinating setting, Afghanistan, and great characters including Kabul murder squad chief and a mild mannered Swiss analyst are pitted against a Blackwater-like entity that will stop at nothing to recover the file. A great read and very interesting insight into the complexities of life in Afghanistan.

- Ben 

A man is booted out of his home after his wife discovers that the sweat-smudged footprint on the inside of his windscreen doesn't match her own. Teenage cousins, drugged by summer, meet with a reckoning in the woods. A boy runs off to the carnival after his stepfather bites him in a brawl. In the stories of Wells Tower, families fall apart and messily, hilariously try to reassemble themselves. His characters - marauding Vikings, washed-up entrepreneurs, and jobbing hacks on local papers - are adrift from the mainstream, confused by contemporary masculinity, angry and aimless. Combining electric prose with compassion and dark wit, this is a major debut.

I could smell him - or rather the booze on his breath - before he even opened the door, but my sense of smell is pretty good, probably better than yours.
So begins this fabulous, funny new detective novel featuring Bernie, a slightly down-at-heel PI; and his offsider, Chet, a dog - and the captivating narrator of the story.
Chet may have flunked out of police school (I'd been the best leaper in K-9 class, which had led to all the trouble in a way I couldn't remember exactly, although blood was involved), but he's just as much a detective as Bernie - superior, sometimes, in his insight into human foibles.
In Dog On It, their first adventure, Chet and Bernie investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl who may or may not have been kidnapped, but who's definitely gotten herself mixed up with some very unsavoury characters.

Cross words, crass words, kind words, bad words, first words, rude words, new words, weasel words, teen words, rap words, power words, colour words, Indian words, Brit words, Blairwords, war words, ad words, pc words, borrowed words, Shakespeare's amazing words, false words, fine words, wine words, American words, name words, last words, even lost for words - this book has them all.
Vivian Cook takes us on a series of excursions down the curious byways of word history and meaning, mingling the fare with games, lists, tests, and quotes. Discover the theojollylogical joys of infixation. Find out if you're a charva, what it means to be nithered, and how to hoy. Delve into the hidden nature of words. Consider how they're born, why they change, and how they die. Learn about the words that are never spoken and others that don't get written. Here's a book overflowing with words and about every kind and variety of word. It offers an irresistible cornucopia of information and entertainment.

'It was our third time playing The Godfather theme since lunch ...'
In a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the Piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the 'hush-hush floor' of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning.
Gentle, intimate and witty, Nocturnes is marked by a haunting theme: the struggle to keep alive a sense of life's romance, even as one gets older, relationships flounder and youthful hopes recede.

Soviet Union, 1956: Stalin is dead. With his passing, a violent regime is beginning to fracture - leaving behind a society where the police are the criminals, and the criminals are innocent. The catalyst comes when a secret manifesto composed by Stalin's successor Khrushchev is distributed to the entire nation. Its message: Stalin was a tyrant and a murderer. Its promise: The Soviet Union will transform. But there are forces at work that are unable to forgive or forget Stalin's tyranny so easily, that demand revenge of the most appalling nature.
Meanwhile, former MGB officer Leo Demidov is facing his own turmoil. The two young girls he and his wife Raisa adopted have yet to forgive him for his involvement in the murder of their parents. They are not alone. Now that the truth is out, Leo, Raisa and their family are in grave danger from someone with a grudge against Leo. Someone transformed beyond recognition into the perfect model of vengeance.
From the streets of Moscow in the throes of political upheaval, to the wintry Siberian gulags and to Budapest, where a revolution will destroy as many innocent lives as the regime it is attempting to end, The Secret Speech is another stunning thriller from the author of the Booker- longlisted Child 44.