05 September 2010
2010
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse
Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortenson
Three Cups of Tea (Young Readers Edition) by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, adapted by Sarah Thompson
The Resistance by Gemma Malley
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory
Get Her Off the Pitch! by Lynne Truss (eBook)
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Book Commissioning and Acquisition by Gill Davis
The Adventures of Tintin 1 by Herge
Bruges by Thomas Cook Publishing
The Rough Guide to Brussels by Martin Dunford and Phil Lee
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
The Virgin’s Lover by Philippa Gregory
The Visitor by Lee Child
Kittenwar by Fraser Lewry and Tom Ryan
Cool Knits for Kids by Kate Gunn and Robyn Macdonald
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy
The Queen’s Fool by Philippa Gregory
On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
Talking It Over by Julian Barnes
Kurt quo vadis? by Erlend Loe
Kurt blir grusom by Erlend Loe
Fisken by Erlend Loe
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
Must Try Harder!: The Very Worst Howlers by Schoolchildren by Norman McGreevy
F in Exams: The Funniest Test Paper Blunders by Richard Benson
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Ligge i grønne enger by Anne B. Ragde
Eremittkrepsene by Anne B. Ragde
Berlin Poplars by Anne B. Ragde
The Collector by John Fowles
37 books
2009
Kineseren by Henning Mankell
Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
The Jane Austen Handbook by Margaret Sullivan
Persuasion by Jane Austen
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney (Pearson book club)
The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck (Pearson book club)
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie
Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling
Botswana Time by Will Randall
The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith
Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith
The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
Fish Pies and French Fries by Gill Holcombe
How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy Balanced Diet by Gill Holcombe
This Is How by M. J. Hyland
Cockroach by Rawi Hage
Rough Guides Directions Athens by John Fisher
Martyr by Rory Clements
1 Dough, 50 Cookies by Linda Doeser
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
Kittens for Dummies by Dusty Rainbolt
RSPCA Complete Cat Care Manual by Andrew Edney
Beatrix Potter: A Journal by Beatrix Potter
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events No.1) by Lemony Snicket
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales by Beatrix Potter
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams
Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris
Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory
May Contain Nuts by John O’Farrell
I Have a Bream by John O’Farrell
Sepulchre by Kate Mosse
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
52 books
2008
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by G.W. Dahlquist
The Ancient Future: The Dark Age by Traci Harding
An Utterly Impartial History of Britain (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge) by John O’Farrell
Extras by Scott Westerfield
Specials by Scott Westerfield
Pretties by Scott Westerfield
Shakespeare by Bill Bryson
Uglies by Scott Westerfield
The Declaration by Gemma Malley
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Mumbai Wallpaper City Guide by Wallpaper Magazine
Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan
What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Lisbon Eyewitness Travel Guide by Susie Boulton
Lisbon Wallpaper City Guide by Wallpaper Magazine
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
Stark by Edward Bunker
Lonely Planet: Eastern Europe by Tom Masters
Mr Muo’s Travelling Couch by Dai Sijie
Notes From a Big Country by Bill Bryson
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
Poems and Readings for Weddings by Julia Watson
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The World of Karl Pilkington by Karl Pilkington, Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais
Did I Really Employ You?: A Step-by-step Guide to Effective Recruitment by Ann Andrews
Borderland by Gary Cross
Dubai Wallpaper City Guide by Wallpaper Magazine
A-Z of Interview Questions by Ann Andrews
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Equiano’s Travels, or Gustavus Vassa the African by Olaudah Equiano
Spellbound: The Legend of the Ice People: 1 by Margit Sandemo
The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
The Island by Victoria Hislop
The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
The Best Day of Someone Else’s Life by Kerry Reichs
My Epileptic Lurcher by Des Dillon
Reading in Bed by Sue Gee
Claudia and the Great Search (Baby-Sitters Club) by Ann M. Martin
Kristy and the Secret of Susan (Baby-Sitters Club) by Ann M. Martin
Dawn’s Wicked Stepsister (Baby-Sitters Club) by Ann M. Martin
Mary Anne and the Great Romance (Baby-Sitters Club) by Ann M. Martin
Winter Vacation (Baby-Sitters Club) by Ann M. Martin
Mallory and the Mystery Diary (Baby-Sitters Club) by Ann M. Martin
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart by Tim Butcher
Where’s Bin Laden: CIA Undercover Edition by Daniel Lalic
The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin
Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin
Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea
Volvo lastvagnar by Erlend Loe
The Lovers’ Room by Steven Carroll
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo
66 books
2007
Between Mom and Jo by Julie Anne Peters
Cut Her Dead by Iain Mcdowall
The Foretelling by Alice Hoffman
The Venus Fix by M. J. Rose
The Death List by Paul Johnston
A Woman’s Work Is Never Done by Rowan Barnes-Murphy
Gangsters Wives by Lee Martin
Goldkeeper by Sally Prue
Secrets of My Hollywood Life by Jen Calonita
Bed Rest by Sarah Bilston
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Rough Guide to Tutankhamun by Michael Haag
Africa: 25 Ultimate Experiences by Rough Guides
New Zealand: 25 Ultimate Experiences by Rough Guides
Down Under by Bill bryson
The World of the “Golden Compass” by Clive Gifford
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
Victorian London by Liza Picard
Bill Bryson’s African Diary by Bill Bryson
Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
Don’ts for Husbands by Blanche Ebbutt
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
Don’ts for Wives by Blanche Ebbutt
Beka Lamb by Zee Edgell
Flight from Deathrow by Harry Hill
The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson
The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
Doppler by Erlend Loe
Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie
Love in the Present Tense by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Restless by William Boyd
This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes
The Girls by Lori Lansens
The Butterfly Tattoo by Philip Pullman
The Broken Bridge by Philip Pullman
A Guide to Wizards of the World by Dugald Steer
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
The Timewaster Letters by Robin Cooper
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth by Mary S. Lovell
Three Nagas in Norway by Easterine Kire Iralu
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling
Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Wisp
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newth Scamander
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabahn by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
Midtveis by Soudabeh Alishahi
Music: A Very Short Introduction by Nicholas Cook
Psychology: A Very Short Introduction by Gillian Butler and Freda Mcmanus
The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
Perfume by Patrick S�skind
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Ringmaster’s Daughter by Jostein Gaarder
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Free Expression is No Offence: An English PEN Book by Lisa Appignanesi
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
A Tale of Two Goats (Nabogeitene) by Tom Barber and Rosalind Beardshaw
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (SYP book club)
Does Anything Eat Wasps? by Mick O’Hare
Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut (MA book club)
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler
Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction by Kim Knott
Mafalda & Friends by Quino
The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
QI: The Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine Mccaughrean
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze? by Mick O’Hare
85 books
2006
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (MA book club)
Rites of Passage by William Golding
The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (MA book club)
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Severed Head by Iris Murdoch (SYP book club)
We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver (MA book club)
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (SYP book club, not finished)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
High Society by Ben Elton
Past Mortem by Ben Elton
18 books
2005
The Frightful First World War and the Woeful Second World War by Terry Deary and Martin Brown
The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis
The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis
Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis
Making Divorce Work: In 9 Easy Steps by Keith Barret
Return of the Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley
The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
India: Stevnemøte med skjebnen by Torbjørn Færøvik
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
Chocolat by Joanne Harris
Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson
A Child Called ‘It’ by Dave Pelzer
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
I Choose to Live by Sabine Dardenne
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Sickened by Julie Gregory
Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life by Roald Dahl
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
25 books
2004
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabahn by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
More, Now, Again by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Stark by Ben Elton
10 books
17 June 2010
Greetings In Jesus Name
by Mike Berry
Before the advent of half-way decent spam filters, my inbox was peppered with emails informing me of 1,000,000 wins on a Spanish lottery I hadn’t entered or from Nigerian Princes with too much money on their hands (and how to make my penis 12” long and sleep with Brittany Spears). Greetings in Jesus Name is a collection of ‘scambaits’ by Mike Berry who runs 419eater.com, a forum for people around the world who take on email scammers at their own game.
Scambaiting involves replying to the scammer, expressing interest in their schemes and then wasting as much of their time as possible by stringing them along with increasingly convoluted stories. The title refers to the fact that a lot of these scammers profess love for Jesus (and occasionally Allah too). Doing the Lord’s work indeed! The greed of these scammers blinds them to the non-sensical adventures that Berry takes them on. Somewhat paradoxically, their desperation for a quick buck making all the more eager to be strung along; some of the scambaits run on for months.
Berry’s tales are delightfully imaginative and have a certain whimsical charm. My two favourites nothing short of genius: getting a scammer to forget about his original plan of fleecing someone out of thousands of pounds and profess undying loving for Gillian Anderson, and a priest running off to the circus and starting a snow-exporting business with £18,000 meant for the scammer. He certainly invested a lot of time in mocking up fake documents, soundbites (including Arnold Schwarzenegger) and even doctored CCTV footage to convince a scammer that he’d been fleeced by an accomplice.
Where Berry does more than just tell stories, I did at times feel a tinge of sympathy for the scammers. He gets to them to brand themselves with a Shiver Metimbers (Mike Berry’s scammer handle) tattoo, write out an entire Harry Potter novel by hand, and fly from the Netherlands to Scotland to meet a victim that isn’t there. But, he periodically reminds us that these people are thieves in the business of praying on the gullible and would not hesitate to rob people blind. The Introduction to the book tells the story of a Greek man who fell for one of these scams, travelled to South Africa and was kidnapped and murdered, lending a disquieting seriousness to the whole business to the book.
Berry’s occasionally annoying habit of chatty annotations and explaining some of his jokes aside, this is a really interesting and funny book to dip in and out of, written by a man with far too much time on his hands.
8 September 2010
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