Men at Arms by Terry PratchettMy rating: 4 of 5 stars In this Discworld instalment we return to The Watch, Captain Vimes, Corporal Carrot, and a host of other familiar and new characters. As always Pratchett demonstrates his ease as a story-teller, married closely to wit, madcap humour and endearing moments. While not as many outright guffaws in this yarn about gun (or gonne) control, multiculturalism and destiny, certainly there is an abundance of escapism,…

Lords and Ladies by Terry PratchettMy rating: 4 of 5 stars Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett, is an outright giggle-fest. Can’t remember the last time I laughed so much while reading — certainly not a book conducive to inducing somnolence. We returns to the witches of Discworld, Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax and Magrat who is about to become Queen Magrat and finds herself in an identity crisis and bored to distraction. Boredom on Discworld,…

Season of the Rainbirds by Nadeem AslamMy rating: 4 of 5 stars Season of the Rainbirds was Nadeem Aslam’s debut novel, first published in 1993, and a dramatic, well-crafted novel it is, taking two literary awards, the Betty Trask and the Author’s Club First Novel Award. There is an understated control to Aslam’s narrative, chronicling the murder of a corrupt Pakistani judge and the seemingly unrelated discovery of missing postal bags of letters from a…