I've been a big fan of Dan Rhodes since his astoundingly clever first book of very short stories Anthroplogy (2000), which was made up of 101 stories, each of 101 word. This new book is kind of a sequel, although there are fewer stories this time, and the word count is not as strict. No story is more than a page and a bit, however. Rhodes is an extremely economical writer, and a very funny one. These are stories about love and relationships, some are sentimental, others are breathtakingly cynical and mean.

I'd been meaning to read this for years, and finally got to it this summer. I can understand why this book has done so well, and is loved by many. It's a very engaging global history of the impact salt, salt mining and production, and salt trading has had on the history of human development. It's full of the most extraordinary facts and information; Kurlansky has obviously dome enormous research, but this is far from a dry recital of facts. He's a great storyteller, and a colourful writer. I recommend this book very highly.

Simon Armitage was a real hit when he appeared at the Wellington Festival a few years ago, and I enjoyed both his poetry and essays subsequent to hearing him speak. His new book is a travel narrative, in which he describes his attempt to walk the entire 256 mile length of the Pennine Way, from Kirk Wetholm just over the border with Scotland, to Edale in the Peak District. He travels without money, and gives poetry readings in village halls and churches along the way to raise funds from donations to pay his way.

As a child, I was a huge fan of maps and atlases, and spent many a happy hour studying the world map pinned to my bedroom wall, dreaming of such exotic places as Death Valley, Novaya Zemlya and Loch Ness - monsters! I guess I was always going to want to read this history of maps and mapmakers, atlases and explorers, and, for a map enthusiast, this is a terrific read.

I've been a huge Don DeLillo fan for many, many years. I still think Underworld (Picador, 1997) is by some distance his best work, and have found the books since then slight, confusing and opaque, although still compellingly readable. It's interesting, given the brevity of his recent novels, that he has now chosen to publish his first book of short stories, although they are not all recently written. The stories arranged in the collection in chronological order, starting with 1979's Creation. Only the last three stories could be described as recent, dating from 2009, 2010, and 2011.

OK, this is a real oddity that my uncle sent me, which he'd found really funny. I've always been a bit of Glen Baxter fan, and this is very much of that style - weird cartoon illustrations, with wry, deadpan captions, which in this case tell the story of one man's very odd life and death. Slight, but very funny!
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/literaryminded/2009/06/26/my-extraordinary-li...