Johnny Rogan, Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance, Charles Palliser, The Unburied and Darrell Huff, How To Lie With Statistics

It really is Morrissey's world. A really interesting account, and explains so much about the relationship between the two, with Marr consciously recruiting Morrissey and allowing him to front the group and form the Smiths myth, and leaving when the time was right for him. Morrissey too comes across as depending entirely on Marr, almost an unrequited love - maybe his career since can be seen as one great effort to win Marr's respect and show he can do it all without Johnny. 'The Unburied' wasn't nearly as complex as The Quincunx, but still an enjoyable Wilkie Collins tribute. If only he'd set it in Bergen or Malmo rather than the fictional Thurchester, BBC4 would be filming it now.

HTLWS is a great, mischieveous little book; Ben Goldacre's 'Bad Science' from 60 years ago. Should be required reading for anyone in our data-rich age. It quotes the prescient HG Wells: 'Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.'

Libby can now say 'Teddy', 'shoes' and 'daaaaaaaa', 'daaaaaaaaa' covering everything that isn't Teddy or shoes. It's Freddie's last day at nursery today as he starts school when we come back from holiday. It's the end of a golden era of going to the park after Rabbits with Daisy and Finbar and Siddi. He looks so cute in his uniform. . . .

Arnaldur Indriðason, Jar City

This is the stuff. A long-forgotten murder, rape, violence, suppressed emotions, horrific discoveries, boiled sheep's heads, coppers with dysfunctional relationships. Perfect for a summer's evening. We've just put the house on the market in another attempt to move out; we've had a fair few viewings and even an offer, but it's £5K below our bottom line. We've seen a few nice places too, so let's see what happens. . .

Fred starts school in a few weeks, after our last holiday in term time to the ile de Re. I left his scooter at Brooklands at the weekend, so we went out last night to get him a new one; with just two wheels this time rather than three. He's zipping along. During the summer, we've got into the routine of going to the park after nursery with a little gang - his friends Daisy, Finbar, Siddi and their mums. It's so nice to see them all play together, it's such a shame it’s all going to end when they head off to school and leave nursery! I'm sure we'll soon settle into a new routine

Seton Dearden, A Nest of Corsairs: The Fighting Karamanlis of the Barbary Coast ('the Karamanli Bashaws of Tripoli in Barbary and their relations with the States, the Consuls and the travellers of the Christian Powers, 1711 to 1835')

There's quite a difference between the headline title of this book and the subtitle. It's rather unfair to print 'A Nest of Corsairs' on the front cover, with images of scoundrel pirates and derring-do on the Barbary coast, and then 5 pages in reveal that it's actually about Libyan Foreign policy in the 18th Century.  Quite dry stuff, and I didn’t take much of it in, beyond the occasional breathtaking aside from the author concerning 'the oriental mind', which appeared to cover everyone that lives east of Athens or south of Sicily. It was written in the 1940s though, so is maybe just of its time. I think it's the sort of attitude Edward Said was talking about in 'Orientalism', but that book is just as impenetrable as 'Midnight's Children' to me.  The trouble with all these books about Orientals is that they all look alike. . .

Arnaldur Indridarson, Silence of the Grave

Woo, Great Britain are up to 19 Gold Medals in this wonderful Olympics. I can now say I've raced with a gold medallist after Mo Farah's victory, as he's taken part in the last two London 10Ks I've raced in. He may have been storming past at the 8K mark while I was puffing along at the 2K, but it was still the same race. . . We've just put the house back on the market and have half a dozen viewings lined up - hopefully we'll have more luck selling this time. I've been able to flog all my Cable & Wireless shares due to the Vodafone takeover, so we have a wee bit of cash too, let's hope we're able to get a nice home to raise the kids in.

Silence of the Grave was really enjoyable, with the usual Scandi-noir elements of a dark secret from the past . The police did absolutely nothing though, it was a series of revelations to get to the truth. Quite different, but it's given me an appetite for more. It all now depends which particular books by authors with nordic names  I can get hold of in Woking Library or the Oxfam Bookshop. . .

Umberto Eco, The Prague Cemetery and WG Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape

Umberto Eco is awfully clever, I think I missed most of the allusions and the significance in the book, about how the conspiracy theories that abounded in the 19th Century about Jews and Freemasons and the like were all the work of one man, a master forger, sewing confusion and acting as a double agent. Reminiscent of the dodgy WMD Dossier, and a worrying reminder of how easy it is to fool people into believing some horrific things. Read Hoskins again, but it really needs to be read with an OS map in hand. It would have been fantastic to sit with him and have him point out the many features that are obvious to him, but that the rest of us miss about bends in roads and field shapes. We did take F&L along to watch the cycling, it was an epic trek across Hoebridge Golf Course and the ridge above the water-meadows between Pyrford and Send Marsh, but we made it, and watched the peloton whizz past. The bunting is up, the only house on respectable York Road to bother; unlike the jubilee when all the posh houses had their flags out.