Show 1: The crime thriller author on what keeps him up at night...
"I'm a writer, but I'm a reader first and foremost. I do a lot of reading in bed; it's very important to get 40 or 50 pages in before I drift away. There's always a big tottering pile of books at the side of the bed."
Brookmyre is one of my favourite writers. He's one of those annoying writers who always manages to write a different book every time. He's a hugely funny writer who combines comedy with fantastic thriller writing. The book gives the world of the paranormal a damn good kicking. Psychics; spiritualists; mediums; they all come in for a lot of stick. Very funny; very thrilling: I couldn't recommend this enough.
A little gem of a book: it's a bit longer than a short story, and a bit shorter than a novella. Harvey is a wonderful writer. It's about a detective and a cop trying to find a soldier absent without leave from Iraq. It made me green with envy: it made me wonder if I over-write everything.
This is non-fiction, written by a journalist with the Washington Post about the post-war setting-up of the Green Zone in Iraq. It's as if George Bush had appointed the Marx Brothers to organise post-war Iraq. You're laughing all the way through at this catalogue of disaster and ineptitude but at the same time there's a terribly tragic backdrop to it. You read it with really mixed emotions, but it's one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. It was recommended to me, and I'm receommending it to everyone else I can.