East Of Eden - John Steinbeck

Epic - despite one dimensional female characters and abundant racial stereotyping this is a really good read.  The main focus of the story is the life of Adam Trask and the many parallels between his life and his biblical namesake's.  The longest book I have read in a long time and I never felt like giving up so this must be pretty good.  It raises lots of things about human nature to think about with out seeming tooooooooo pretentious.

7/10

Stardust - Neil Gaiman

I have no idea why it is taking me so long to get around to reading all of Neil Gaiman's books.  All the ones I have read so far are excellent.  This is quite a different book to American Gods short, light and easy going rather than dark and  claustrophobic.   It is an excellent story set partly in Victorian England and partly in Faerie.  It was a fun book to start off the new year.

9 / 10

The Rational Optimist - Matt Ridley

As everybody knows life was better 50 years ago and I have always suspected that 50 years ago life was said to be even better 50 years before that etc etc.  Matt Ridley disagrees with this.  Cheap power, less people starving, fewer people dying in wars, less air pollution more people getting educated, the internet, warm dry housing are just a few of the reasons that he argues life is getting better and better for more people and further more it will continue to do so.  The reason he thinks that this happens is largely down to trade.  This book is well thought out and argued.  I really enjoyed it especially since he tended to argue the opposite to my instinctive position on most issues.

9/10