The 2013 Round-Up

And so, once more, to the end of the year and the requisite retrospective of my reading habits over the past twelve months here at Reader Dad. Regular visitors and Twitter followers will know that 2013 has been a year full of ups and downs (more downs, unfortunately, than ups) for me, what with five […]

FEARIE TALES by Stephen Jones

FEARIE TALES: STORIES OF THE GRIMM AND GRUESOME Edited by Stephen Jones (www.stephenjoneseditor.com) Illustrated by Alan Lee Jo Fletcher Books (www.jofletcherbooks.com) £14.99 For most of us, the fairy tale is one of the staples of growing up. Bedtime stories for young children, it’s only when we reach adulthood that we realise just how disturbing they […]

THE GIGANTIC BEARD THAT WAS EVIL by Stephen Collins

THE GIGANTIC BEARD THAT WAS EVIL Stephen Collins (www.stephencollinsillustration.com) Jonathan Cape (www.randomhouse.co.uk/…/jonathan-cape) £16.99 The island of Here is a place where order reigns supreme. ‘Tidy’ is the watchword, and everything follows pre-defined patterns, and no-one stands out. Across the sea is There, the complete opposite to Here, a place where chaos rules and nothing is […]

SAVE YOURSELF by Kelly Braffet

SAVE YOURSELF Kelly Braffet (www.kellybraffet.com) Corvus (atlantic-books.co.uk) £12.99 When Patrick Cusimano’s father kills a child while driving drunk, Patrick calls the police. The "right thing", morally, isn’t necessarily the right thing for the Cusimano family, and Patrick’s older brother Mike resents him for it. Layla and Verna Elshere are the daughters of a preacher; Layla […]

DOCTOR WHO at 50: 11 DOCTORS 11 STORIES

11 DOCTORS 11 STORIES Eoin Colfer (www.eoincolfer.com) Michael Scott (www.dillonscott.com) Marcus Sedgwick (www.marcussedgwick.com) Philip Reeve (www.philip-reeve.com) Patrick Ness (www.patrickness.com) Richelle Mead (www.richellemead.com) Malorie Blackman (www.malorieblackman.co.uk) Alex Scarrow (www.scarrow.co.uk) Charlie Higson (www.charliehigson.co.uk) Derek Landy (www.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk) Neil Gaiman (www.neilgaiman.com) Puffin Books (www.puffinbooks.com) £12.99 On 23rd November 1963, the BBC introduced the Doctor to the world. In the […]

GAME by Anders de la Motte

GAME Anders de la Motte Translated by Neil Smith Blue Door (www.harpercollins.co.uk/…/blue-door) £7.99 Released 5th December 2013 When Henrik “HP” Pettersson finds a mobile phone on the train his first thought is how much it might fetch if he tried to sell it. The phone receives a message, addressing HP by name, and he starts […]

DOCTOR WHO at 50: An Excerpt from BEHIND THE SOFA

BEHIND THE SOFA Edited by Steve Berry Gollancz (www.gollancz.co.uk) £9.99 All author royalties are donated to Alzheimer’s Research UK. Saturday 23rd November 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the world’s longest-running science fiction drama, Doctor Who. As a long-time fan, I thought it would be nice to mark the occasion in some way and, thanks […]

THE ABOMINABLE by Dan Simmons

THE ABOMINABLE Dan Simmons (dansimmons.com) Sphere (www.littlebrown.co.uk/Sphere) £18.99 George Leigh Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared on the North-East Ridge of Mount Everest in early June 1924. A couple of days later, another Englishman, Lord Percival Bromley – not officially part of Mallory’s expedition – disappeared from the same location along with a […]

COMPETITION: Win a Copy of LIKE THIS, FOR EVER by Sharon Bolton

Thanks to those lovely people at Transworld Books, we are celebrating the recent release of Sharon Bolton’s Like This, For Ever by giving away three copies of the book to lucky Reader Dad visitors. This competition is open to UK visitors only. To be in with a chance of winning a copy of this brilliant […]

LIKE THIS, FOR EVER by Sharon Bolton

LIKE THIS, FOR EVER Sharon Bolton (www.sharonbolton.com) Corgi (www.transworldbooks.co.uk) £6.99 Barney Roberts is 11 years old and obsessed with two things: finding his mother, who walked out on him and his father while Barney was still too young to have much of a memory of her; and understanding the series of murders of five London […]