Some of our favourite reads from last year...

      The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

Last of the trilogy and one of my most eagerly awaited books of my life, when I said to people I was reading a book about vampires, witches and daemons nobody believed me as I love my crime books so much. This trilogy is a must for anyone who loves a great love story, it touched my greatly, the books are not for the faint hearted, each offering is the size of a garden shed but so well worth the read.

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Before I go to Sleep by S. J. Watson

I enjoyed this read so much and the thing I liked best was that it made me think about that situation every time I put it down, there were brilliant characters, a fantastic plot and best of all, a terrific twist. A great read, I haven’t watched the film, truthfully I don’t think I would but I recommend the book for sure.

Click to reserve Before I go to Sleep by S J Watson or Before I go to Sleep audiobook

Blood Magick by Nora Roberts

Again a last part of a trilogy I really enjoyed and eagerly awaited the last part of this year. This series is like all Nora’s books, it has beautiful women, jaw-droppingly handsome men and they’re all lovely. This works for me and I looked forward to the book as these stories wrap around me like a cashmere blanket on a cold winters day. Wonderful.

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Plus a DVD...

Batman: The Dark Knight Rises (DVD)

Not much I can say against the caped crusader, I loved the Christian Bale Batman films, I thought Bane was one of the best baddies ever although it was a hard decision between him and Heath Ledgers Joker. Not a current film but I finally got round to watching it and I’m really happy I did.

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The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

This is an excellent read, I thought this was going to be a little chick-lit read but I soon got to the point of staying up all night to finish it. Set in Australia, it follows the lives of different families but when a secret is accidentally revealed it causes a ricochet of emotions and events to unravel all around personal lives that look perfect on the outside and how they all link together because of one secret. What a great read and I would definitely read more of her books.

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The husband's secret by Liane Moriarty or The husband's secret - audiobook

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield

This book is described as a ghost story so I settled in for a scary read. I was a little disappointed only in the fact that I didn’t find it scary, but that did not detract from the fact that this was a totally brilliant book. It wasn’t something I would pick up and chose for myself, it is actually my book groups monthly read. For a start it’s historical (set I think in the 1800s) and this is definitely not an era I would pick, I quite like my books set in the recent past and classified as “crime” but this books follows the story of William Bellman who starts out playing with his friends and killing a rook. This sets of a chain of events in his future that he can’t undo, or can he? The writing in this book is lovely and descriptive and even when it is “dark” it is easy to understand what I think the author wants you to understand is happening.

We know who Mr. Bellman is but who is the mysterious Mr. Black? You will have to read the book to find out!

Click here to reserve your copy Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield

Patrick Ness - A Monster Calls and The Chaos Walking trilogy

In the last 6 months I have become a huge fan of Patrick Ness. I have now read 4 of his books - the truly incredible A Monster Calls was the first. It is a book that he wrote based on an idea by Siobhan Dowd who died from cancer before she could write it herself. I don't want to give too much away about the plot but it is based around a young boy's experience of his mum being seriously ill, how he is processing this and visits from a monster! It is incredibly emotional and emotive but not without humour. It isn't a difficult read and is short enough to read in one or two sessions (approximately 200 pages and the version I read was illustrated a bit like a graphic novel). It would probably be very good as a "life situations" book without being "worthy and boring". Basically I thought it was amazing.

I have just finished reading Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy. While all of the books are brilliant I personally found the first book The Knife of Never Letting Go the best and most original read. The story is of Todd Hewitt, the only boy in a town of men (no women - you'll have to read it to find out what happened to them) where everybody can hear everything that everyone thinks (including animals) due to the 'disease' Noise. When Todd has to leave he soon meets Viola and they go on an amazing journey together as they run away from the men of Prentisstown. It is a story of great heroism and friendship written (or so it feels) at an incredible pace - a proper page-turner.

By the time of the second book in the series The Ask and The Answer Todd and Viola have reached the town of Haven but Viola has been seriously injured and they now find themselves separated and stuck in the middle of a power struggle between The Ask and The Answer and both being forced into situations where it is impossible to do the right thing - there are some real moral issues. We also find out far more about the natives of the planet called The Spackle. One of the things I really love about these books is the way they swap between characters narrating the story so you are constantly viewing the story and the actions of the characters from different perspectives.

The final part of the trilogy is Monsters of Men and the action is pretty much continuous - I don't know if this could ever be a film because at points it just seems too intense and non-stop (at some points I had to put the book down just to give myself time to recover). By this point we are constantly seeing the story from three different perspectives as war breaks out between 3 different groups now including The Land led by The Sky. The main characters are constantly treading on a fine line between good and evil as war (as the title suggests) makes monsters of men.

Read the whole lot - I can't recommend them highly enough.

Top 10 albums of 2012/13 so far - my opinion

At last somewhere where I can throw my opinions out to the world on music. I may of course find this difficult as I don't like it when people disagree (my wife thinks that I'm pretty pretentious and precious about music) but what the hey! Rather than start by reviewing an album I thought I'd do something I've always wanted to do and do a top 10 list! The following is a personal list of the best new albums added to the Library Catalogue in the last 12 months (I should have known that I wouldn't have been able to keep it down to 10!):

• Antony & the Johnsons - Cut the World
• Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man
• Paul Buchanan - Mid Air
• Beach House - Bloom
• Cat Power - Sun
• Crystal Castles - III
• First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
• Grizzly Bear - Shields
• Richard Hawley - Standing at the Sky's Edge
• Lambchop - Mr.M
• The Lumineers - The Lumineers
• Mumford and Sons - Babel
• Of Monsters and Men - My Head is an Animal
• Lucy Rose - Like I Used To
• Sigur Ros - Valtari
• Tindersticks - The Something Rain
• The xx - Coexist
• Lana Del Rey - Born to Die

Avengers Assemble, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises

I have to say that I was beginning to think that you could have too many comic-book hero films until I saw three films in recent months all of which blew me away in their own quite different way - Avengers Assemble, The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spiderman.

I loved the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man films and thought they had probably taken it about as far as it was possible to go (witness film 3!). Not true - this is absolutely brilliant - a fantastic story-line with just the right amount of action without going too far down the road of over-relying on CGI rather than plot. Importantly to me young British actor Andrew Garfield plays Spidey this time (I thought he was amazing in Red Riding) and I do like a proper actor playing my super-heroes!!

Robert Downey Jr is enough to make me try most films but I didn't really have massive hopes for the Avengers Assemble film and I just put it on one Saturday evening when really I was too tired to watch a film and wanted to watch something that I didn't care if I fell asleep while watching it. I know, I know - what an interesting and dynamic Saturday night-life I must have! Ignoring that thought I have to say that again this was fantastic - quite a bit more comedy than Spider-Man or Batman but oh my god the action!

The main criticism I'd heard about this was that you couldn't tell what the main villain Bane was saying due to his Hannibal Lector style face mask but I really don't understand that - I could understand him just fine (again a young British actor giving gravitas to a role - this time, Tom Hardy beefed up just like in Bronson). This is a very long film (160 mins) but it flew by. I just love how dark and grim these films are - far more my thing than the camp sixties TV show or indeed the Tim Burton versions although Batman Returns was pretty cool at the time. A fitting end to the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy although for me nothing could beat the The Dark Knight but I did see that at the cinema and it's difficult to follow that Heath Ledger performance as The Joker!

At my mother's knee... and other low joints by Paul O'Grady

At my mother's knee... and other low joints As I have got older I have made some big decisions in my life (education, job, marriage, parenthood etc.) but one of the most important has been that if I don't like something (book, film, music) I just don't finish it. Unfortunately that conclusion has just been reached with this Paul O'Grady autobiography. Don't get me wrong - I love Paul O'Grady's sense of humour and would definitely describe him as seeming to be warm-hearted but this book is just plain boring. I really and truly expected to find myself laughing out loud and not wanting to put the book down but in actual fact I've hardly been able to bring myself to pick it up in the first place. Far too much information about his family and not enough stories about Mr O'Grady himself - I've had it for weeks and have now given up at page 136 - maybe it's fantastic from there on in but I'm never gonna find out...

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