Books I have loved over the years

Bob Payne, Travel writer

Escape Clauses

“A witty account of former Conde Nast writer Bob Payne’s adventures set around the world, mostly on tropical islands, the High Seas (oceans?) and rivers. His experiences were quite literally, poles apart – we find him aboard a super-warm ship carving its way through the Arctic icepack, but you’ll have to read the rest yourself.

He writes engagingly with a dry humour, and provides insights into humanity. (I’d expect nothing less.)

His lesson is that we are quite different in small ways – what we eat and wear, for example – yet humanity is remarkably the same the world over. I wholeheartedly agree with this nugget of wisdom as all I ever want to do is lounge in a town square with a coffee and gawp.

Thanks Bob. Filed next to “The Old Patagonian Express” for reference.

Witty .

top Top Ten Questions any budding writer could answer…te

Rachel Caldecott, Memorist and Fiction writer

Blown out of Proportion

Blown Out Of Proportion – Misadventures of a Glassblower in France is a ‘chasing the dream saga’, but with a difference.

Glassblower, Chris Thornton, falls in love with the summer dawn over southern France’s vineyards, while his long-suffering wife falls in love with a bush.

Braving scorpion-filled hovels, eccentric local characters, corrupt politicians, and traumatic legal battles, they attempt to establish a glassblowing studio in an impoverished, sleepy little town.

The Panopticon Experiment

Earth, 2332: The Human Supremacy League is on the rise again, hell-bent on destroying the advances of interspecies cooperation gained over the last two centuries.

I said :

intriguing sci-fi. This dystopian thriller had touches of a ‘Hunger Games’ feel set in a future, gloomy watery London. It reminded me of the John Christopher Tripods books, even John Wyndham.

As the first scenes rush past, the premise and designing principles emerge as the story progresses – based on the interaction between people and animals – there are ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ setting up a conflict which includes a young woman and man who take things in to their own hands. The protagonists are self-sufficient, lively people on the verge of young adults, but this book is for all.

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