I’m sure I’ve read Henry Marsh’s book before. Almost a quarter of our blood supply is dedicated to providing energy for the brain. When things go wrong, brain surgery is the last resort. What makes Marsh different is not that he’s a brain surgeon, but that he’s also a great writer. Marsh tells us he’s grown more conservative over the years. Not conservative in terms of treating health care as something that should be floated on the market with...

The Constant Gardener (2001) Scott Fitzgerald once said, "There are no second acts in American lives" , the 4th book on my list of the 9 books that inspired me to write , The Constant Gardener , proves that in literature, this isn't the case. Le Carre's incredible return to form opens with the brutal murder of a British national, Tessa Quayle and her driver, Noah, in Nairobi. Her husband, Justin, is a diplomat who sets out to find out what...

Kolymsky Heights (1994) The American poet, Kenneth Koch once said ,"You cannot not be influenced by great writing", and this book was one of those 'turning points' in my writing. Steven Spielberg, before filming, always watches John Ford's The Searchers , when I start planning to write, I always read Kolymsky Heights . I think its the best thriller ever written. Kolymsky Heights is the third book on my list of the 9 books that inspired me to...

Stephen Fry, who had his own much publicised breakdown, writes on the back fly-leaf: ‘A perfectly extraordinary, not to mention an extraordinarily perfect – tense Hitchcockian psychodrama. I have rarely read a more haunting and enthralling account of descent into madness.’ A.K. Benjamin is a therapist working in London. His patients are given nom-de-plums and anonymised, ‘JB,’ ‘Lucy’, ‘Michael,’ ‘Jane,’ ‘Dr Samuels,’ ‘Brad76,’ ‘Murray,’ ‘You...

$5K - 52 Weeks - 20 Penny Stocks One Winner!! Current Status ( -$3,290.39 ) Week - 26 Ogres may be like onions, but small startup stocks are like trees! ------------- Continuing along the tree branch... --------------------------------- Before a tree can begin to grow tall and strong it must first develop a sturdy root system. Before a stock can begin to show real growth it needs time to develop the same sort of unseen yet crucial root system to...

I read the first 40 pages of The Lying Life of Adults . I’ve read most of Elena Ferrante’s fiction and non-fiction. It was to me a familiar story of Neapolitan middle-class life in a fashionable apartment. A brilliant father who studies and lectures and publishes. A beautiful mother, who is also brilliant, but less so, being a woman. And an insecure daughter that needs to be both brilliant and beautiful and fears she is nearer. Imagines herself...

Legion (1983) Long before it became a tourist attraction, Dublin's Temple Bar in the 1980's was a ramshackle collection of dilapidated warehouses, earmarked for demolition. The area was hidden behind a stockade of music postered hoardings. Along the street amid the buildings was a bookshop called The Alchemist's Head (sadly gone now). It was a long, narrow shop with shelves full of fortean magaines. movie magazines and a healthy stack of sci-fi...

Great Scottish Writer—Neil M.Gunn (1941 [1989]) The Silver Darlings. The Silver Darlings , referred to in the title, are herring. Neil M.Gunn’s most popular novel was published by Faber & Faber in 1941. Think about that. T.S.Eliot was the main man at Faber & Faber. The phony war with Germany was over. Britain was in retreat and awaiting imminent invasion and possible starvation as U-boats sunk tens of thousands of tons of merchant...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p09qkrq8/daisy-maskell-insomnia-and-me I watched this last night. The programme started at 10.35pm, and I was almost falling asleep. A poor joke, which also happens to be true. My partner has problems sleeping. The woman across from us said she doesn’t sleep much. My sister goes to bed in the afternoon, and her son isn’t much better. As Henry Marsh writes in Do No Harm , exercise is supposed to help prevent...

Salem's Lot - (1975) Salem's Lot is the first book on my list of the 9 books that inspired me to write . This was my first 'grown up' book, a battered trade paperback found in a second-hand bookshop in Dublin's long-gone 'Daffodil Market', I paid £0.60p for it in 1983. The premise like JAWS, parks an unspeakable threat into a small American town and its corrosive impact on the locals. Salem's Lot was a gateway book for me to the works of John...