Shane Richmond

New York magazine asks six writers to list their six favourite books. William Gibson recommends sci-fi, Peter Carey offers his suggestions for historical fiction, Kathryn Harrison does memoirs, Simon Rich handles humour, Rebecca Skloot looks at science writing and the owner of the Mysterious Bookshop recommends some thrillers.
Of the 58 books listed, I’ve read just [...]

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson was the 40th book I’ve read this year and the 100th since I started my 26 books project in 2006. I’m quite pleased.
When I started I was looking for something to motivate me to read more and I thought that aiming to finish a book every two weeks [...]

Neal Stephenson wrote one of my favourite books, Cryptonomicon. He started off as an author whose work was obviously science fiction but has gradually morphed into someone who writes fiction about science, much of it set in the past. He’s returning to sci fi for his next book though.
In May Stephenson gave a talk at [...]

I’ve read 44 of the 1001 books on this list of books you “must read before you die”. That leaves 956 to read. At a rate of 26 per year it would take me 37 years to read them all. I’m 34 next month so it would take me until I’m 71 – assuming of [...]

Michael Portillo will lead this year’s largely unqualified eclectic panel of Booker Prize judges. Look out for an unexpected win for Andy McNab.

If you haven’t seen Glenn Danzig explain his book collection yet, I suggest you watch it now:
It’s a pisstake, surely? I love the fact that his bookcase appears to be by the pool, which at least explains why he’s stripped his shirt off to do a little light reading.
Still, it’s the books that are the [...]

Steve Martin is one of those comedians I can take or leave. Usually, I leave him. He always seems just a little too pleased with himself. And he was in Dirty Rotten Scroundels.
Nevertheless, he has his moments and here’s one of them. Writing is Easy! is one of the columns Martin wrote for the New [...]

Posting has been slow here so far this year because I’ve been setting up another blog. I’ve invited five other people to join my 26 books project this year and I’ve set up a blog – 26books.com – for us all to chronicle our reading.
It’s another WordPress blog and it uses the Freshy theme. I [...]

Here’s the list of what I read this year:
January
Underworld by Don DeLillo
February
Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
March
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
April
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin
May
The Dumas Club by Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Fatal Eggs by Mikhail [...]

I realise that I’ve lost some of the drama by posting books 25 and 26 so close together but it can’t be helped. I started Complicity on the way back from Paris and finished it yesterday morning, even though I still hadn’t had time to write up book 25.
Anyway, it’s done. Twenty-six books completed with [...]