Reading - September 2025

Small Inventions That Made a Big Difference by Helen Pilcher (2021)

A series of short essays - what would have been newspaper columns, in a different context - about unconsidered but influential items and how they came to be. The subjects range from paper clips to pacemakers, so the criteria used for selection are fairly fluid. Interesting but inessential reading, and somewhat bitty.

Daydream by Hannah Grace (2024)

Second time reading this in about three months, mainly because I'd since read the previous two Hannah Grace books and although this works standalone, it makes a bit more sense as a follow-on from them. Plus it's a really sweet romance and I just liked the characters!

Guitar by Earl Slick with Jeff Slate (2024)

As the selected discography at the back of the book shows, Earl Slick has worked with a bunch of famous and lesser-known musicians, but all of those fade into insignificance compared to the central creative relationship of his life, that with David Bowie. Slick played more times with Bowie than I'd realised, over 40 years, and unsurprisingly the book is mostly about this. Slick's a real rock'n'roll original and although he says he never considered a different life, you get a sense of how precarious it could be at times. It's an easy read, with some interesting titbits about working as side man Bowie and also with John Lennon, but I didn't get as much of a sense of the man behind the guitar as I did with, say, Steve Lukather's autobiography.

It Just Occurred to Me ... The Reminiscences and Thoughts of Chairman Humph by Humphrey Lyttleton (2006)

A slight but rambling book, being a very loosely connected series of anecdotes, memories and thoughts from a legendary figure in British jazz and radio. In fairness, the title tells you exactly what you're getting, and perhaps the more complete life story is in one of his other eight books. It's entertaining enough - and I learned more about him than I knew before - but a bit disjointed and somewhat unfulfilling. Much of the material is covered in his Desert Island Discs appearance, from the same year, and it's nice to hear him talk, so I'd recommend that over the book.

Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood (2023)

Apparently this is more of a YA novel, which might explain why it's a bit less spicy than some of her others that I've read. But in fact that just allows for more story, and I enjoyed what was there, even though it doesn't feel particularly realistic (the main male character is too perfect) - although in fairness I thought it was ridiculous that the chess World Champion would be 20, when in fact the current World Champion was 18 when he won, so what do I know.

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood (2021)

This is where the Ali Hazelwood phenom started then. If the initial setup is a little unlikely - although it's no worse than other romcom meet-cutes I suppose - the gradual development of the central relationship from pretend into a real one is believable and emotionally satisfying. Highly readable and very enjoyable.

How I Escaped My Certain Fate by Stewart Lee (2010)

I read this about fourteen years ago and enjoyed it, so the discovery of a copy in a charity shop prompted me to do so again. Still very funny in places, but having seen Lee perform in the mean time, I can see what it loses on the page. He's a very Marmite comedian (who would, no doubt, have something suitably trenchant and acerbic to say about the use of the popular yeast extract as a metaphor for "some people think he's shit") but I think he's great.

Let's Make a Scene by Laura Wood (2025)

From the cover and the blurb, I was expecting this to be a straightforward enemies-to-lovers romance. After a couple of chapters, it seemed obvious that it was actually a fake-dating story (my second this month!). And then, half way through, it turned out to be kind of both and kind of neither, but a really nice mix of those plus a couple of other romance tropes thrown in for good measure, all assembled with more emotional depth than I expected and a really satisfying story development.

The Price of Money by Rob Dix (2022)

A great primer on how the money system works, including why inflation happens and why governments deliberately cause it, what that means for everything else and finally some suggestions about how one might mitigate its effects. Short, chattily and engagingly written - highly recommended.

The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson (2024)

One man's story of his journey into the utter madness of trading in the money markets (probably the wrong term, technically) and of his discovery of a conscience after making millions betting on the world's economy continuing to get worse. Compelling reading, but the combination of this and The Price of Money is somewhat sobering: clearly, no-one actually knows how the current state of capitalism will end up, nor how to control it or the forces that are making it worse - let alone get the actual problems in the world (water scarcity, global warming, inequality, you know, little things like that) attended to.