Daniel Bird (Author of Sorry Men)

Daniel and 2 other people liked Dan Rhodes's blog post: Tunnel of Love: a downbeat update " So here we are, a few weeks into 2026, and what have I done so far? Not much, apart from working long hours in the sleet, coming home half dead, then lying in bed with the electric blanket on, drinking black Yorkshire tea [with the bag still i..." Read more of this blog post »
Mar 20, 2026 05:48PM
Daniel rated a book it was amazing Patchwork Dolls by Ysabelle Cheung (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Patchwork Dolls wields an immediate and palpable atmosphere as, in each of its ten stories, the reader is placed in a surreal world of discomfort, oppression, and unease. The imagery is frequently haunting or Cronenberg-esque: mushroom spores growing ...more
Mar 20, 2026 05:37PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Patchwork Dolls by Ysabelle Cheung. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Patchwork Dolls by Ysabelle Cheung <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Daniel is now following Ysabelle Cheung Author of Hong Kong Noir
Mar 01, 2026 05:37AM · like
Daniel rated a book it was amazing The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories by Carson McCullers	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Found this at a book market in London. Knew nothing of the author and had never heard of any of the stories. A fantastic and quirky collection of stories capturing loneliness, the fragility and unreliability or love, and damaged souls. There are moti ...more
Oct 18, 2025 03:26AM · like · see review
Daniel rated a book it was amazing After Hours: Scorsese, Grief and the Grammar of Cinema (Auteur, 1) by Ben Tanzer (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
After Hours is a unique and compelling read that draws out intense feelings of nostalgia and appreciation for the films we get lost in. Tanzer fuses many facets of his life through film: his journey of becoming a writer; a hedonistic youth; a sensibl ...more
Sep 29, 2025 12:25AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of After Hours by Ben Tanzer. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — After Hours by Ben Tanzer <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Daniel rated a book it was amazing Cop Town by Karin Slaughter (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Vulgar. Racist. Misogynistic. Homophobic. Drug-riddled. The 1974 Atlanta painted in Slaughter’s Cop Town is a deeply unpleasant place and the police force is not much better. Some complain this book is painted in too broad a strokes and lacks realism ...more
May 03, 2025 06:54AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Cop Town by Karin Slaughter. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Cop Town by Karin Slaughter <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Daniel is now following Karin Slaughter Author of Pretty Girls
May 03, 2025 06:53AM · like
Daniel rated a book it was amazing Lessons by Ian McEwan (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Mar 25, 2025 07:04AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Lessons by Ian McEwan. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Lessons by Ian McEwan <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Daniel rated a book it was amazing The Porpoise by Mark Haddon	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A beautifully written novel that features Haddon's masterful skill with prose. Descriptions of even the most prosaic scenes are imbued with life and uniqueness. His imagery is profoundly creative and not a single paragraph passes by that isn't in som ...more
Jan 28, 2025 10:52PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Porpoise by Mark Haddon. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Porpoise by Mark Haddon <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Daniel rated a book it was amazing Precipice by Robert Harris (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Yet another superb novel by Harris who seems to have utter flexibility in his range of subjects. The backdrop of WW1 once again fills naive readers like me with knowledge we probably should have learnt or have since forgotten. What he masters so well ...more
Jan 12, 2025 04:40PM · like · see review

Daniel and 2 other people liked Dan Rhodes's blog post: Tunnel of Love: a downbeat update

" So here we are, a few weeks into 2026, and what have I done so far? Not much, apart from working long hours in the sleet, coming home half dead, then lying in bed with the electric blanket on, drinking black Yorkshire tea [with the bag still i..." Read more of this blog post »

Daniel rated a book it was amazing

Patchwork Dolls
by Ysabelle Cheung (Goodreads Author)

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Patchwork Dolls wields an immediate and palpable atmosphere as, in each of its ten stories, the reader is placed in a surreal world of discomfort, oppression, and unease. The imagery is frequently haunting or Cronenberg-esque: mushroom spores growing ...more

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Ysabelle Cheung

Author of Hong Kong Noir

Daniel rated a book it was amazing

The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories
by Carson McCullers

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Found this at a book market in London. Knew nothing of the author and had never heard of any of the stories. A fantastic and quirky collection of stories capturing loneliness, the fragility and unreliability or love, and damaged souls. There are moti ...more

Daniel rated a book it was amazing

After Hours: Scorsese, Grief and the Grammar of Cinema (Auteur, 1)
by Ben Tanzer (Goodreads Author)

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

After Hours is a unique and compelling read that draws out intense feelings of nostalgia and appreciation for the films we get lost in. Tanzer fuses many facets of his life through film: his journey of becoming a writer; a hedonistic youth; a sensibl ...more

Daniel rated a book it was amazing

Cop Town
by Karin Slaughter (Goodreads Author)

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Vulgar. Racist. Misogynistic. Homophobic. Drug-riddled. The 1974 Atlanta painted in Slaughter’s Cop Town is a deeply unpleasant place and the police force is not much better. Some complain this book is painted in too broad a strokes and lacks realism ...more

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Karin Slaughter

Author of Pretty Girls

Daniel rated a book it was amazing

Lessons
by Ian McEwan (Goodreads Author)

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I’ve been a fan of McEwan for about twenty years. When I was in my teens I found his work controversial and enticingly disturbing. He is a writer with a profound ability to create moments that stay with you long after the novel has been returned to t I’ve been a fan of McEwan for about twenty years. When I was in my teens I found his work controversial and enticingly disturbing. He is a writer with a profound ability to create moments that stay with you long after the novel has been returned to the shelf. Cement Garden with its upsetting death of a frog; Enduring Love with the hot air balloon accident; Child in Time with its walkie talkie sequence. McEwan speeds along and then pauses, inviting us into his characters’ heads to really experience; it is often unpleasant and morbid but always a journey worth taking.

Much like his Atonement, Lessons feels sweeping in its scope. It leaps back and forth to seemingly pivotal moments or decisions in one man’s life. But ultimately much of the novel rests on its protagonist’s indecision(s). Roland Baines, a naive boy/man/pensioner and gifted pianist is distracted from his potential by a criminally seductive piano teacher who takes advantage of him over a period of years during his horny adolescence. Eventually he gives up on study and the piano and drifts somewhat aimlessly against backgrounds of global sociopolitical upheaval. His lovers are plenty but they do not stay. Baines offers a kind of entrapping torpor in his inability to pursue his various abilities to any meaningful end. The women do not wish to end up this way. That is their lesson. Near its start the novel shows his wife, Alissa, leaving him and their two year old in favour of her artistic ambitions.

Spanning eight decades of Roland Baines’ life. Lessons is a bold project that is held together masterfully by McEwan’s prose, sheer intelligence, and skill at creating palpable inner turmoil. Lessons felt to me like a series of long awaited and critical confrontations between people after years have passed. Yet each tête à tête results in a somewhat surprising and yet unsurprising outcome when we consider the logic of Baines’ occasionally apathetic responses. The gaping passing of time and the raw truth of emotions do not always equal to melodrama. That is a lesson too.

I found this book deeply moving and in its closing chapters there is a deep yearning for a life better-lived but not from someone who has been completely unfulfilled. Baines, like the reader, is able to view the episodes of his life in a somewhat didactic fashion. McEwan, whilst hilariously cynical at times (a wonderful rant by Baines about Christian art in Paris was very amusing), is also a player of our heart strings. A particularly touching sequence follows the gradual demise of Daphne, Baines’ terminally ill wife who he finally ties the knot with at a ripe old age.

Whilst not my favourite McEwan it is certainly one I’m very glad to have read and would highly recommend to anybody familiar with his ‘uneasy’ tales. Some say this book is more autobiographical. I don’t know how McEwan feels about his own endeavours as a writer or whether he is channelling any of his own frustrations through the array of characters in this novel, but he shouldn’t for one second doubt the significance of his work. ...more

Daniel rated a book it was amazing

The Porpoise
by Mark Haddon

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A beautifully written novel that features Haddon's masterful skill with prose. Descriptions of even the most prosaic scenes are imbued with life and uniqueness. His imagery is profoundly creative and not a single paragraph passes by that isn't in som ...more

Daniel rated a book it was amazing

Precipice
by Robert Harris (Goodreads Author)

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Yet another superb novel by Harris who seems to have utter flexibility in his range of subjects. The backdrop of WW1 once again fills naive readers like me with knowledge we probably should have learnt or have since forgotten. What he masters so well ...more

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