Books read in March 2010

 The Raggard Trousered Philanthropist. Robert Tressel. This was recommended to me by a friend a couple of years ago and I bought the book then. However, after 100 or so pages it repeated the first hundred pages! So years later I have purchased another copy. Published in 1914, Tressel's main characters - the workers who think that a better life is "not for the likes of them" provide the title of the book; Tressell paints the workers as "philanthropists" who unselfishly throw themselves into back-breaking work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their masters. The book’s hero, Frank Owen, is a socialist who believes that the capitalist system is the real source of the poverty he sees around him. He tries to convince his fellow workers of his world view, but finds that their life has trained them to distrust their own thoughts and to rely on those of their "betters". Tints of ‘Animal Farm’ in the book with long narratives about small episodes make the book longer at 622 pages than it should be. 3 Stars
The Alchemist’s Secret. Scott Mariani. This has more than a touch of Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code. A good and honest man accompanied by a presentable female searching for something priceless. The hero, Hope has, of course, a dark and guilty secret in his past that haunts and drives him to do what he does in the hope of redeeming himself in his own mind. Roberta Ryder is the other main character who Hope meets on his quest. Other characters are generally two-dimensional, but that's not a major problem as most of them die. There's a very high body count – nothing too gory but they do die and there's even a bit of torture thrown in for light relief. Coincidences happen a little too regularly and sometimes the way that the plot works out just defies belief. I know. I'm being picky. This book is no worse and no better than hundreds of other books which will fly off airport book shop shelves during summer. It is pulp fiction another weakness of mine. 2 Stars
Hide and Seek. Ian Rankin. Second in the Inspector Rebus series and enjoyable as the first. Rebus, now an Inspector, is on the track of the murderer of a junkie found in a squat. Thrown off the scent by misleading “clues” he eventually succeeds in finding out who and why, the how is found out in the autopsy. My only complaint is why is it so dark? At one point in the book two characters have the following conversation. “It’s dismal” “This is picturesque compared to the rest” Why no sunny days? Why no bright pubs and restaurants? Still I enjoyed the mystery and was still guessing up to the last chapter. I will be buying the next couple in the series, hoping that they are as entertaining as the first and second but again hoping they are not as dark and brooding. 3 Stars
Gerrard. Steve Gerrard. Autobiography’s I like, sporting ones too, but not normally any autobiography of a playing sportsman especially a footballer. I thought they would be bland like their interviews on TV. This wasn’t, it was interesting full of little stories, good and bad, of football players within Liverpool and outside. Of games that I watched both live and on TV. It was also a true ‘scally’ story, Liverpool lad done good, a Liverpool lad playing for his and my team. “Loved it” to quote his well used phrase. He lived my dream and told it like I hope I could. Will be buying “Carra” soon to compare scally with scally. “Bring it on!” 4 Stars
I have now had a run of two poor books, both 0 Stars. The first One Perfect Op (Dennis Chalker) is an autobiography of a US Navy Seal. (I thought it was fiction on purchase). It was so boring, everything was “classified” and when it wasn’t, it was, we did this, reported, had a few beers then went off and did it again somewhere else over and over again. It was boring and poorly written. The second book Some Sunny Day (Annie Groves) was about a family in Liverpool in the World War 2. It definitely missed the spot. The story was rambling; the positions of the areas in Liverpool (my home town) where the action took place where so far apart that the characters could not have moved between them in the timescales in the book. The attempts at describing the scouse narrative were abysmal. It failed on all points!