Wrote this piece for the Guardian website. Funny thing, blogging for a newspaper website. You can't ever forget the fact that you're going to get some stick - a piece of knowledge that undoubtedly affects your writing. You either try to pre-empt the agressive, spiteful stuff (don't think that's true strong a word, even if the spite is casually delivered over the lunch-break) or you try to stir it up, to impress the editors with how many replies you get. Neither strategy helps you write the truth as you see it. It might be the future of something, but I'm pretty certain blogging isn't the future of great writing.....

I've recently started reviewing for the Sunday Times. It's a fantatstic new writing experience, properly challenging and with a real sense of responsibility - I know all too well that most authors put their life and soul into their books, and are almost totally reliant oncritics for publicity, unless they're celebs. So you don't criticise lightly - nor, though, can you dismiss your gut feelings. If you aren't enjoyinga book, the only explantion you can reasonably posit is that the book's not enjoyable. The temptation to be kind, and put it down to a bad lunch or a hangover, is great, though! Anyway, here's a couple of my reviews, for A Single Swallow, by Horatio Clare, which I'm afraid I didn't enjoy, for Philip Parker's The Empire Stops Here, which was an interesting experince - I'm no postgraduate classicist, so was the slght boredom my fault or his? Anyway, it's an incerible effort of a book, so dedicated. And finally, a bit of fun - a CIA Spycraft history. Boys with toys!!!
But the book I'm currently recommending to anyone who will listen is The State of Africa - a history of fifty years of independence on the continent. Simply magnificent, like taking a tablet that helps you see the truth at last. What an achievement of a book.