Stuff Ian Likes

<p>Helene Hanff rose to international prominence with 84, Charing Cross Road, but she had been a writer all her life. This frequently hilarious memoir details how that writing life began…</p><p><br></p>

James Bolivar diGriz is a career criminal in a universe that barely acknowledges his existence. He is also the hero of a series spanning 50 years of the life of Harry Harrison. Funny, smart and exciting, this is a set...

Arthurian literature has fallen off my radar a little in recent years, pretty much because of real world issues influencing how I feel about it. Beloved Exile is, however, a genuinely superb novel about what happens...

The story of Reyhnard, Prince turned itinerant labourer, is a wonderfully grim tale about the son of a brutally pragmatic king and how his life turns out. It’s a superb meditation on power and who deserves to hold on to...

Susan Townsend chronicled life in the late 20th/early 21st Centuries hilariously in the Adrian Mole books. Funny and touching, they are a wonderful look at how we all changed during that time.

We visit the very far future and a quite degenerate Earth in this month’s episode. We also look at what sort of choices are made when dividing up a long book into smaller chunks for publication.

The Rocketeer started life as a serialised comic before become a bestselling graphic novel before becoming a fun movie. There have been other incarnations of the story but these are the two I love the most. Find out why...

Iain Banks’s fifth novel is one of my favourites by him, with or without the M. It’s a witty, clever and utterly charming story of a guy who decides to use music as a way of fitting in to his life and succeeds beyond...

Stephen Baxter’s 1997 novel Titan is occasionally eerily prophetic, sometimes quite depressing, but always a great read. I love it for his incredible near-misses on what the future looked,like and for the amazing story...

The Fey was one of the last multi-volume fantasy epics that I managed to successfully engage with until the conclusion. It’s also a wonderful fantasy soap opera that succeeds in ways that so many others fail. Like a lot...

Spotswood is a 1991 movie starring Anthony Hopkins, Ben Mendelsohn, Tony Collette and Russell Crowe. It’s a charming, clever, touching film about helping other people.

I only read it for the first time in 2021 but it’s been one of my favourite stories for many more years than that due to an excellent BBC adaptation that I had on video… although without the title sequence. Some notes…...

This quartet of fantasy novels appeared during the 1980s and has been begging for a sequel ever since. It’s witty and gripping, making it a perfect piece of entertainment for me. You’ll also have to excuse my voice in...

Nancy Springer and R. A. MacAvoy are names that aren’t spoken about these days as much as I wish they were. They produced many wonderful books and I take a look at two of them here.

Michael’s Shea’s 1982 World Fantasy Award-winning novel is an absolute gem. It’s funny, grim, scary and horrific - frequently all in the same sentence. It’s a brilliant look at eldritch horrors existing side-by-side in...