1979 / Audiobook / 246 pages / USA
**
Tied with Bluebeard as his blandest and least idiosyncratic novels, this would get a boost if I was more interested in socialism or 1970s American politics. Alas.
1992 / Audiobook / 501 pages / UK
****
Seeing the TV adaptation at a relatable age has always made me warmer to this one than his other post-80s books, even if I did leave it to cool for a decade before actually getting through it. By Banks' standards, this tale of murder, electrocuted parents and exploding grandparents is really chill.
1998 / Ebook / 103 pages / USA
***
This wasn't one of my favourite Hitchcocks, but this enthusiastic making-of and close viewing makes me think it's probably one of the best and that the director was all he's built up to be after all. The suggestion that the head-pecking gulls predicted the Kennedy assassination is academic madness at its finest.
2004 / Ebook / 87 pages / UK
**
The animal cruelty cut my tolerance of Tarkovsky's interminable biopic short, but it turns out I didn't miss much. This short book struggles to find much depth in a film its creator said not to bother dissecting, so retreats to historical background and summary.
2007 / Ebook / 152 pages / USA
***
The author admits his anxiety about writing a whole (quite short) book about one album, then realises he can use half of it on the band biography before unleashing the lifelong fan's obsessive analysis.
