Learning to Paint and Draw by Hazel Harrison

As a newbie kind of lost in the world of materials and techniques but desperate to express myself this is a brilliant book, covering briefly many aspects of drawing and painting, using watercolours, pastels, graphite and coloured pencils, oils and acrylics, and pastels.  A really good starting point.

Seriously Good!  Gluten-Free Baking by Phil Vickery

I have just had two massive slices of Vickery's Apple Pudding Cake with Cider Topping from page 86 of this wonderful book.  Being gluten intolerant can be a chore but finally I have recipes for much missed beloved goodies such as flatbread, yorkshire pudding and the five recipes I've tried so far really do work and are wonderful.

I only have two issues.  Firstly, Vickery uses a food processor a lot, which is fine for those who can afford it but for those with only at most an electric mixer had mixing alternatives would help.

Secondly I had real problems making the wonderful tasting Bonfire Parkin with Ginger Icing because I, like many that I know of, am intolerant to the gluten in oats, for me it is my most pernicious ingredient.  I tried using quinoa to replace the oatmeal but it didn't really work, I may try polenta next time.  The book is called 'gluten free' so it should contain only gluten free ingredients.

But in general, this book is great, a little effort and you don't need to rely on the supermarket and health food shop gluten free aisles. 

The Passage by Justin Cronin

6 year old Amy is abandoned by her desperate mother with a group of nuns after killing a trick who was taking her to a fraternity house.  Deep in the mountains of Colorado army scientists are trialling use of a virus found in the jungles of Columbia to create supersoldiers of immense strength, bloodthirstiness and longevity, vampires in all but name.  After 12 subjects the scientists want a new subject, they want Amy, and after treatment she becomes something new.  Inevitably the worst happens, the 12 get loose and turn everyone they bite into one of them, 'smokes', 'virals' or 'dracs'.  The United States turns apocalyptic.

Move forward a century, Peter lives in a fortified community, he has never seen the stars because at night floodlights are switched on all round the perimiter to keep the smokes at bay.  He is one of the Watch and is waiting for the return of his brother, taken up by the smokes on a visit to the generators.  For some reason, the smokes always come home.

This could have been a brilliant dystopia, it has elements of Shymalan's 'The Village' and good post apocalyptic novels but the characters aren't well deliniated, apart from Amy and ex-nun Lacey they all blended together for me.  There are too many cliches, vampires rule the world and humans become just meat, mad scientists ruin the world, etc etc.  Disappointing ultimately

The Girl at the Lion D'Or by Sebastian Faulks

A beautifully understated book, one reviewer described it as being like a Vermeer and it is very painterly with carefully deliniated characters.  The scene is the small French village of Janvilliers, the time between the First and Second World Wars, and a young girl Anne come to take up the post of waitress at the hotel Lion D'Or traumatised by a loss unidentified until later on in the narrative but inextricably linked to the horrors of World War I and the slaughter of Verdun.  She becomes drawn to Hartmann, recently married veteran living in his father's old manor house outside the town, and a gentle drama is drawn out backlit by the drama of France's road to Vichy and World War II, the quiet suffering of the millions of men that did make it back from the front and the memory of those who did not.

Clive Barker - The Dark Fantastic by Douglas E Winter

It took me I think three goes to read this weighty book but it was very much worth it.  This is not the usual lightweight biography of an author focusing on his or her life and the expression of themes from it in their work, this is academic in style and prose, a deep introspection into the life and literary and artistic work of an extremely complex individual, Clive Barker, perhaps most famously the creator of Hellraiser, the Books of Blood and Candyman.  Barker's work defies categorisation, straying at times into science fiction, other times fantasy and horror but always moving forwards and onwards, a mysticism grounded firmly in the material and earthly, sensual and sexual and often disturbing.  Winter uses both an erudite critique of each of Barker's major film, book and art works to date and his own correspondence with Barker to create something that does what a good biography should, sends you straight back to the books.

The Dream Merchant by Isabel Hoving

Joshua Cope is a very ordinary 11 year old boy, not particulary talented, unlike his best friend Baz who is an amazing drummer.  He has a dysfunctional but not particularly so family, he lives with his mother Mo and her partner and visits his father at the weekends.  His older sister is mildly annoying, as is her boyfriend who is always asking to see Joshua's collection.  Which is where what Joshua considers his own talent comes in, he's a good thief.  Late at night the phone rings, but none of the others in the house wakes and eventually he answers.  A strange man on the phone, he hangs up, but the calls keep coming and so begins an amazing tale of dream worlds, lost twins, broken families and high adventure rooted in the emotional landscape of four young children.  Absolutely brilliant.

A Big Little Life by Dean Koontz

Koontz's biography of Trixie, the golden retriever who changed his and his wife Gerda's lives from a work dedicated childless (but happily so) couple and turned them on to an awareness of the joyfulness with which an extraordinary dog such as Trixie meets and experiences every day.  There is no doubt that Trixie is extraordinary but it is also true that the revelations she brings to Koontz are those that experiencing life through the lives of any pet, or indeed, of a life lived in the moment, can and do bring.  Yes, it is overly sentimental and bucolic but sometimes that isn't a bad thing