Reading for pleasure

The Budapest Protocol

Adam le Bor

Beautiful Books: £8.99 (e-book £ 4.67)

This gripping political thriller is based upon a meeting that took place in the Maison Rouge Hotel in Strasbourg in May 1944, when senior Nazi industrialists agreed on a plan to create the Fourth Reich through financial and economic dominance leading to greater financial integration and interdependance by states and consequent loss of national sovereignty. Le Bor, a foreign correspondent in Budapest writing for several national newspapers, has, in the spirit of good storytelling, taken the fact of the meeting and its purpose and developed it to reflect the "what if" scenario, while building on many realities within the current EU framework set against the background of the fictionalised European election of the first President of Europe. Is it all coincidence?

Into Thin Air

Dirty Old Town

Nigel Bird

e-book: £0.79 & £0.71

To coinide with the launch of the enhanced online Journal, it is worth noting there is writing which is only available as e-book. Continuing the "what if" scenario, Nigel Bird has written, in "Into Thin Air", an arresting short story of a couple who unexpectedly meet, describing their brief encounter and tantalising us with what might have been. Brief, sharp, crisp but fully engages that other area of storytelling, the power of imagery and imagination.

"Dirty Old Town" is his debut collection of short stories, an eclectic mix where we observe the lives of others, engaging all emotions from tragedy, marital disharmony, father and son housebreaking chicanery, to crime noir.

In My Time

Dick Cheney

Simon & Schuster: £20 (e-book £14.99)

As George Bush's Vice President, Dick Cheney was the most influential holder of the office, uniquely "playing a signficant role in key policy issues", and not restricted to the constitutional role as President of the US Senate. Outwith the domestic sphere, his major contribution to the Bush administration was in the post 9/11 era, signified by two bricks on Cheney's desk; one from the compound of Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the other from the house where US special forces killed Abu Musab al Zarqawi, al Queda leader in Iraq.

Bush sought Cheney's considerable experience of Government, Cheney having served in Congress, Chief of Staff to Gerald Ford, and Secretary of Defence in Bush senior's administration. As a deeply patriotic man, he offers a robust explanation of US action post 9/11 and candid views on other key players in the administration, including his disappoinment of Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tennet.

Given Cheney's unrivalled view on the inner workings of US Administrations at significant periods in recent years, this accessible political autobiography, which is admirably candid, will be of interest to many, but perhaps most to those those who want to know the inside story of the US response and thinking to the so called "War on Terror".

The Sickness

Alberto Barrera Tyszka

Quercus £7.99 (e-book £5.10)

This absorbing short novel examines modern man’s preoccupation with his own mortality, and whether being economical with the truth can ever be justified. For the best of motives, a doctor decides to lie to his father about the nature and extent of his condition. At the same time, his secretary carries on a secret correspondence with one of his patients, rather than upset him with the news that his illness is psychosomatic. Although the author is not a doctor, he offers convincing insights into the world of hospital medicine, and conveys intense emotion without becoming sentimental in the process.

The Untold Story of Eva Braun 

Thomas Lundmark

Createspace: £ 9.12 (e-book £4.34)

Surprisingly little has been written above Eva Braun, the woman who refused to leave Hitler and died with him in the bunker in 1945, and yet who was rarely permitted to be seen publicly with her "Wolf". The author fictionalises elements of the story, but in doing so, based as it is on available evidence, vividly brings to life 1920s and 30s Munich and Berlin, the rise of the Nazi pedagogy, to give a rivetng account and shed a strong but illuminating light on a rather tragic woman, who achieved, in her way, the fame she sought.