I'm reading In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick at the moment - a classic and chilling story of a voyage that went horribly wrong. It's excellent- as you caulk the hull and replace the planks of your model ship, in dry dock, think of the crew of the Essex, too weak from hunger and thirst to swim, attempting to stop a leak in their overloaded whaleboat while hundreds of miles away from land.

In addition to the inevitable echoes of Moby-Dick, and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin novels, it reminds me in places of two other disaster at sea books I've read- Selkirk's Island and - the disaster here mitigated by, for the survivors, enough prize money to retire on- The Prize of All the Oceans .

I highly recommend all three.

As part of my on-going diet of Very Short Books, this past week I read The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim, as recommended to me here by AggieH – thank you very much indeed for the recommendation, Aggie.

It is a collection of strange and unsettling stories, overwhelmingly bleak but absolutely remarkable. Nothing here is happy, and some of the stories – not least the title tale – are so very bleak that they might be best avoided if you’re not prepared to be made miserable. But this is certainly writing of great power and originality.

My one concern, after the first couple of stories, was that perhaps Blasim was capable of raising only one voice – a good voice, a strong voice, but just the one. But then came one of my favourite pieces in the book, "A Wolf", in which he demonstrates that he certainly can do other voices, and that he can be very clever indeed, followed swiftly by "Crosswords" where there are more voices and cleverness. In the whole collection there are only two pieces that fell a little flat for me – "Dear Beto" and "The Dung Beetle". "Why Don’t You Write a Novel…" meanwhile sends an added shot of retrospective strangeness back through the pieces already read, and has you reading those to come with a sharper eye.

In short, this is a very fine collection, very much worth seeking out.

I have Blasim’s other collection, The Madman of Freedom Square, on my pile but for now I’m on an old favourite, Chronicle of a Death Foretold…

Forgive me. I posted this under 'Reader Reviews' comments, but it should really go here, I think:

I've just finished Evelyn Waugh's Scoop which I haven't read before. It's a short novel, and the pace of narrative beautifully balanced in a story that hasn't really got time to pause for breath. Very, very funny. It was written in 1938. Don't read it if you think your 2013 PC values might outweigh your sense of humour. My edition has an introduction by Christopher Hitchens, the purpose of which seems to be to to tell us that all the unlikely incidents in the book happened to him when he was a young correspondent, but you could skip it if you prefer.

I've also been reading Model Shipbuilding from Stem to Stern. There aren't many jokes in it, but it's very good on rigging. If you enjoyed Planking Techniques for Model Shipbuilders then you'll enjoy this.

And, at last, I've finally started Leo the African that was recommended to us by AggieH. I'm only a few pages in, but looking good so far.

I just started The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud. It's an interesting read so far - the protagonist is, well, rather self-involved, but I guess that's key to how the story unfolds. Despite that, it's keeping me turning the pages, so that's something. It's my first Messud, though I don't know why I haven't gotten around to her sooner.

Still working my way through Thomas Mallon's A Book of One's Own. It's not new, but one I've been meaning to get to. Being a long-time journal keeper myself, and having recently started a series on Journals on my blog, I was recommended this by a friend. It's been a lovely read so far. Mallon read a lot of journals as he wrote this book and he shares his observations on the 7 different journalling types that he classifies here: chroniclers, travelers, pilgrims, creators, apologists, confessors, prisoners. Good stuff.

And, finally, a lighter read to balance things out: On the Outside Looking Indian by Rupinder Gill, a Canadian-Indian. This one came out in 2011 and is about how the author went about creating a second childhood after 30 - doing all the things that her strict Indian upbringing had denied her. It's funny and witty in a dry sort of way, mostly, but, also a lovely window into how first generation Indians in Canada thought / lived.