I'm on annual leave just now which is sadly coming to an end :(. However I've had a damn fine time ploughing through the pile of books that have sat unread for ages -

Joseph Finder - The Moscow Club - This is the second Joseph Finder book I've read and it also happens to be his debut title. I was a bit worried that being his first book his writing style and skill may not have fully developed, kinda like Dan Brown's earlier efforts which are pretty so so. I was however pleasantly surprised to find that it's a real page turner. 8/10

Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompsons classic 1970's novel about his chemical fueled search for the American Dream. Totally outrageous and of it's time. 7/10

Luke Rhinehart - The Diceman - another cult classic (partly based on fact) about Rhinehart's decision to live life by the roll of a dice. It kinda gets a bit lost in itself near the end and you get the feeling that the content of the last 50 or so pages was decided on the roll of a dice no doubt. 7/10

David Wolstencroft - Good News, Bad News - Wolstencroft is the creator of Spooks and Good News, Bad News is his debut novel about two modern day British Spies assigned 'wet work' on each other. Not a bad read for a first novel and it's a reasonable page turner but it kinda just didn't have that 'you gotta read this' spark about it. 5/10

David Wolstencroft - Contact Zero - Wolstencroft's second novel which is again set in the murky world of the British spy business. This is a cracking read about a handful of MI6 'probationers' who are hunted down by their own, and who in turn are on the hunt for the mythical 'Contact Zero' who they hope will provide them sanctuary. This is a way better novel that Good News, Bad News. 8/10.

Joseph Finder - Killer Instinct - This is Finder's latest novel and like Paranoia we find ourselves immersed in the cut and thrust of high technology big business. The main character, Jason Steadman, befriends ex-special forces tough guy Kurt Semko, gets him a job in his company's Corporate Security division and then things start to go sour. This book was yet another great page turner, I read it from cover to cover in a single 6hr sitting. 7.5/10

My current read is Quicksilver: The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. This is a 900 or so page tome and the first of the Baroque Cycle trilogy. I'm about a hundred pages in and beginning feel that it's a meandering read, there's a lot of unnecessary padding and I can't seem to get the point of the book. I've heard so many good things about Cryptonomicon and I realise that Quicksilver was written afterwards as a prequel and hence me reading it first. However I really hope I've got the energy to make it to the end. Even Martin gave up on it which is a bit of a worry. I too also hate investing lots of time in books with >500 pages. I feel that if you haven't started getting to the point or even within ten miles of it within 150-200 pages then I'm sorry your wasting my time. Score so far....2/10.

I finally got round to reading the last book in Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. If you haven't heard of these before then I do thoroughly recommend them. I don't have the time to summarise in a paragraph what the story is about, suffice to say we've got parallel universes, armoured bears, witches, zeppelins, quantum physics, daemons, angels, hair bombs and an good old fashioned battle between good and evil. 9/10. This site does a way better job than I can do of summarising the books.

The other book I finished this week is Paranoia by Joseph Finder which I picked up on recommendation by my mate Spence. This is a really good page turner about Adam Cassidy, a hi-tech product marketing bod and professional corporate waster who is blackmailed into stealing corporate secrets from his company's competitor. I read it in a day it was so good. 8/10.

A year ago I picked up Six Days by journalist Jeremy Bowen which is an account of the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and Syria, Egypt and Jordan. I'd been dipping in and out of it for the last three months and stone me this week Israel is at it again! Anyway, it's highly topical and explains, amongst other things, the background and reasons for territorial anomalies such as the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and other Israeli landgrabs over the past 60 years.

I just finished K-Pax III: The Worlds of Prot the third and final installment about the mysterious 'prot' character who claims to be from the planet K-Pax. It's a pretty light hearted affair and has all the welcome familarity of the characters and settings of the previous two books about Gene and prot. That said I didn't feel there was as much substance in this encounter with prot as the original K-Pax but it's still a good read if you're in between a couple of heavier tomes. 7/10.