Stephen Jay Gould

Advantages: They DID fit a quart in a pint pot!
Disadvantages: Not a single one

...The Gardener's Pocket Bible, by Roni Jay, is an excellent little book. It is a little bit bigger than average pocket size, but would probably fit quite snugly inside the leg pocket of a pair of cargo trousers! The book is 178 pages in length and is described by Roni Jay as a collaborative effort between Roni Jay, her mum and dad, Jill and Tony, their friend Will, who is a professional gardener, Laurie Taylor (he was the proof-reader, I think) and James Belsey, to whom she also dedicated the book. There was also a poorly fax machine who helped in the proceedings. With that cast of six (leaving the fax machine out of this, for the moment!) one might expect this book to be a sort of camel of a gardening book, you know, the elderly joke about a camel being a horse designed by a committee? Not a bit of it! The book is eminently... Read review

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Advantages: An even better book than you could expect
Disadvantages: Not a single one

...The Cook's Pocket Bible by Roni Jay is an ideal size to fit in the large pocket of an apron, as the book is 174 pages in length. The book is edited by Richard Craze and Roni thanks her dad for helping her with the wine section, for, as she points out, she has a "lack of enthusiasm for drinking fine wines." She also thanked chef Matthew Lamb (cool name for a chef, don't you think?) for his help in reading through the entire manuscript, and adding some clever tips of his own. Roni Jay is a rarity in my opinion, as she is the kind of writer who acknowledges the great and invaluable help from a variety of people who usually never get a mention from other authors of "how to books" who like to pretend that they "did all the work on the book myself." The book is nicely laid out. It starts with the all-important charts and tables... Read review

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Advantages: Good characters
Disadvantages: Book doesn't end so much as peter out

...Introduction This book caught my attention because it was in the crime fiction section, which is not where I would expect to find a Stephen King novel. As the novel was so short and Stephen King usually writes much longer books, I thought it must be another Stephen King. It was, however, by the Stephen King, so intrigued, I took it home. The book is included in a series of books called Hard Case Crime and was reminiscent of books by the likes of Dashiell Hammett and other authors of the noir genre. The author Stephen King needs little introduction. He is best known as a thriller writer of such novels as Carrie, Dolores Claiborne and The Shining. This book was a relief to King's fans, who had heard rumours that his novel-writing days were over. The story Stephanie McCann is a twenty-one year old intern at a newspaper on a small... Read review

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