Be your own life coach - fiona harold. Where many life coaching books tend to come off as very patronising, obvious and, most of all, American, this book is none of the above. Fiona Harold has spotted a hole in the market and fashioned herself into Britain's most successful life coach, which means she's about two foot shorter than Tony Robbins but has more hair (well, real hair anyway). This book pretty much sums up how you yourself can define who you are and what you want to be. No filler, just effective exercises for you to work through and see how you really think. There is some pseudo-psychotherapy going on in there but it's not extreme and the main flaw I would suggest is that sometimes it's easier for someone else to see your weaknesses and strengths than you find it yourself - so just using the book isn't always the answer. That said it's a great book and I highly recommend it to everyone to help understand who you are and what you want to do.

Women - charles bukowski. Another psuedo biographical story about Henry Chinaski, once street living post office worker now semi-successful writer and womanizer. This book is a sequence of exploits in Chinaski's later life as a published writer and poet. Through his writing Chinaski is now able to fulfil his ideal lifestyle of drinking, shagging many different women and generally floating through life. Each chapter is incredibly short giving a real sense of the longevity of Chinaski's plans for life. Although the main themes carry on through the book there is no real story as such, just slices of life being lived in a suicidal style. You find yourself wondering if this was really how Bukowski was living or whether it was the fuck fantasies of an old man. Guess I'll have to read a biography to find out. If you like Bukowski this is a great read.

The wind-up bird chronicle - haruki murakami. It seems like only a short time ago that I read my first ever Marakami epic, Norweigan Wood. Back then I'm pretty sure that was the only book of his that you could find. Now every other book I read is one of his, something that hasn't really happened for me since Terry Pratchett. Not that these two authors are in any way alike, it was more a comment on how my reading has changed over the years!

But back to the book itself... The chronicle, as I shall call it for brevity, is not a thin book. Weighing in just over 600 pages it at first seems a little daunting. Luckily it was worth the effort. The story is based around Toru Okada who loses his job, cat and then wife in quick succession. All of this seems quite straight forward and sane until about a third into the book when an increasing number of psychic characters start to emerge. At this point the story changes completely, from a simple tale of modern life to an allegorical stew of meaning and stories within stories. Characters come in and drop out with surprising regularity with Toru being the main link through all of them. Sounds confusing? It is, but somehow even though it doesn't really make any sense you find yourself hanging on every twist and turn, fascinated to see what happens and how. Dry cleaners, mediterranean islands, birds, a female 'fitter' and her mute son are some of the characters you come across, with situations ranging from a normal suburban street, through the Japan-Russia conflict of the early 1900s to an all-pervading well. Oh, and of course we get to find out that Toru likes cooking spaghetti as his main meal as he tries to recover his lost wife.

Then, as strangely as it starts, the story stops. Everything sort of makes sense and you feel like you've climbed a mountain and are looking out on amazing views below. Phew. A happy ending as only Murakami could construct from another great book.