Charley's War 2 June - 1 August 1916 by Pat Mills

Charley's War is always brilliant, the collection of Battle comic strips of young Private Charley Bourne, fighting in the worst hells of the Western Front. In this collection we at the Front in August - October 1916, as the first 'landships', better known to us as tanks, are unleashed on the Germans. If the powers that be had used the full capacity of these new weapons the war would have been over, but as ever Mills and Colquhoun express the incompetence of the generals with brilliant black and white illustrations and show rather than tell us the horrific consequences of their stupidity on the lives of the soldiers fighting at the Front.

A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

I listened to the programmes and was desperate to see the objects talked about, and I learned so very much about world history from this truly global history of human kind in 100 objects stretching right back to the very first human use of stone tools right up to the present day. I enjoyed its non euro centric focus and I liked the pictures, they are of lovely quality and if you wanted to see more you could make the pilgrimage to the British Museum. Although by definition idiosyncratic MacGregor's selections opened my eyes.

Charley's War: The Great Mutiny by Pat Mills

Charley's War is always brilliant, the collection of Battle comic strips of young Private Charley Bourne, fighting in the worst hells of the Western Front. In this collection we are Etaples training camp in August 1917 where the brutal treatment of trainees by officers explodes into mutiny. Then, filled with remorse for having to shoot one of his comrades for desertion he joins the stretcher bearer's, unarmed soldiers charged with going out of the trenches unarmed to collect the wounded with only armbands with the words SB on them to protect them. As ever Mills and Colquhoun express the unfairness and slaughter of the Western Front with brilliant black and white illustrations and show rather than tell us the horrors of shell shock, malnutrition, gas attacks, class hierarchies and black humour.

Even Money by Dick & Felix Francis

Ned Talbot is a bookmaker, one of the last independents working his pitch at Royal Ascot. As his day draws to a close he is pestered by a man, who claims to be his father, and then is attacked and stabbed in front of him in the car park. But Ned's father is dead, both his parents died in a car crash when he was a baby and he was raised by his grandparents. Ned is plunged into a brilliant plotted but unfortunately not so well written story about the secrets hidden in his past, the mental fragility of his beloved wife, murder, money and fraud.

Castle Waiting by Linda Medley

Castle Waiting begins as the fairy tale castle Sleeping Beauty slept in for 100 years before being woken by a prince, but Linda Medley asks what happened after she woke and went off with her price. Medley answers with a wonderfully bizarre story steeped in cultural mythology and fairy tales, homage paid to the talking animals of Aesop, to Grimm and Andersen but also, becuase this is a (beautifully drawn) graphic novel, to Rackham and Beardsley. The hardback itself is beautiful, a lovely size on buff coloured paper bound with elegant endpapers.

What the Night Knows by Dean Koontz

Detective John Calvino has a wonderful life, three sparky intelligent children - artistic 13 year old Zach, dreamer Naomi 11, and 8 year old latent psychic Minnie - home schooled by his artist wift Nicky and tutors. But he is haunted by the horrors of a childhood, orphaned and robbed of his two sisters by a man of unspeakable depravity and violence. Now a 14 year old boy Billy has turned on his family in an eerily copycat violent spree and evil appears to be awakening. Vintage Koontz, where he pits good and innocence against mailign and less over forms of evil, without ever seeming trite or patronising and combining the earthly and grounded with the supernatural and demonic.

Crossfire by Dick & Felix Francis

Thomas Forsyth's life as a career soldier is brought to an abrupt end by and IED in Afghanistan. He returns to his racehorse trainer mother's stable in Lambourn struggling to come to terms with his maimed body and the loss of his future with the Army. In his childhood bome he is drawn into a roller coaster ride of hedge funds, fraud, blackmail and murder and finds a place for his military training in planning and executing a war against an unseen enemy. Discusses heavily relevant issues within a thrilling story.

The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith - Isabel Dalhousie #3

In Alexander McCall Smith's third Isabel Dalhousie book human nature and love are gently reflected on. Our eponymous heroine is the editor of a journal of ethics and lives alone, visited by her spiritualist housekeeper Grace, close to her neice Cat and her ex boyfriend Jamie. As Isabel entertains house guests, her American cousin and husband, she comes into contact with an American couple, millionaire Tom and his young fiancee Angie. Is she simply a gold digger? And what of her own feelings for a younger man, feelings that help her heal from the loss of her beloved but unfaithful husband years before.

Johannes Cabal The Fear Institute by Jonathan L Howard

Johannes Cabal is a necromancer, raiser of and communicater with the dead. To his gate (not into the garden, due to the tendency of the fairies in his garden to eat the unwary) come three visitors. Messers Shadrach, Bose and Corde, an art dealer, a solicitor and a funeral director, who belong to a society known as The Fear Institute. They want to hire Cabal to guide them through the Dreamlands, the place people go when they dream, in search of the Phobic Animus, fear itself. What ensues is an adventure in the vein of Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Jasper Fforde's Bookworld, and indeed in the tradition of Lewis Carrol. Howard draws on literature and mythology in a book that is laugh out loud funny, gently and not so gently poking fun at mystics and believers in dream reading everywhere. A book I didn't want to end.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Alison's father is a funeral director in a town so small he teaches part time to supplement his income. Both he and Alison's mother Helen are distant and emotionally unavailable leading to Alison's siblings and parents existing in the home behind the funeral home, the 'fun home' of the title in separate bubbles, like an artist's enclave. It is Alison's relationship with her father she focuses on in this brutally honest but gently wry and revelatory autobiography. He is a repressed homosexual obsessed with asthetisism, consumed with restoring their home to it's historical glory at the expense of his wife and children's own tastes and personal space. As Alison goes to college and discovers her own emerging homosexuality the truth about her father's affairs with boys comes out and she struggles with her deep love for a man unable to express affection for her. Compelling and well drawn.

Johannes Cabal The Necromancer by Jonathan L Howard

In a universe very much like our own, with the addition of magic and Hell being real, Johannes Cabal is a necromancer, a speaker with and controller of the dead. In return for his powers he made a Faustian pact with the Devil for his soul, and now he wants it back. He strolls into hell and makes a deal with Lucifer, 100 souls for his own. The Devil provides him with an infernal carnival and the rest is up to him. This could have been a grim horror story, but Howard's use of gentle humour and literary allusion combined with some excellent characters, especially Johannes' undead brother Horst who has the usual infernal powers combined with a strong moral compass, that make this a joy to read.