Here’s all the books that I read in 2015, by month. On the each month’s page there’s quick review or synopsis of each book that I read in that month. …

I first came across binary puzzles in early 2013 after finding a book of them in a Belgian supermarket, not long after I first came across Haskell. And I believe that I've now published the first solver for binary puzzles written in Haskell. And it only took 3 years ;-)The puzzles are a little lik …

This is a pretty comprehensive 'brief' history of the Anglo-Saxons - from the decline of the Romano-British culture in (what we now call) England up until the arrival of the Normans and indeed beyond. Hindley investigates …

This novel was one of a trove I inherited from my parents, a gift for my mother on her 20th birthday. It tells the story of a weaver, formerly a religious nonconformist and now miser, who discovers a meaning in life other than gold when an orphan c …

Blood Meridian (or The Evening Redness in the West) is a sort of literary slasher set in a mythical version of the Old West. If you can get past the grisly ultraviolence and cast of socio/psychopathic characters, there is a powerful story and …

I can’t resist a bargain. Paying 60p for a book with a 1 pound sticker on the front does, I believe, constitute a bargain. The text, dating from 1990 is actually a pretty solid PL introduction and fairly compre …

I have wanted to read some of DFW’s stuff ever since sending one of my blog posts through I Write Like and discovering that our styles were statistically similar. Having read this collection of essays, I am rather chuffed at the …

An Oxfam treat, this. S?awomir Mro?ek’s 1957 collection of ultra-short stories are bizarre and compelling. From elephants made from rubber to save money, to a world of tiny people that live in a drawer, Mro?ek is satirical and surreal in e …

Eco is brilliant, and I think this is one of his most enthralling novels since Foucault's Pendulum. As in that book, conspiracies abound — freemasons, jesuits, that sort of thing — though this time in nineteenth century Europe. How …

This novel was leant to me by Nor who was recommended it by another friend. In a sort of rambling travelogue, Sebald ruminates on thoughts and stories that were triggered by wandering round on the Suffolk coastline — Lowestoft, Southwol …