Shark Liver Oil

Part 3 of our read through of the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown! This week we've got all sorts of good things; from art history to the Hitler Diaries to the possibility the Jesus may not in fact have been conversant in modern social media. As always, get in your thoughts, arguments, theories and alternative facts to [email protected], or on Twitter @sharkliveroil.

In episode two of our balls to the wall guide to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code we flick from lonely Silas (he just needs the love of a good woman), to the fleeing and inner monologue riddled brain of Robert and, of course, we drop in on the collapsing clown car that is the (fictional) Parisian police authorities. We also continue to ponder the true mystery that matters - just what on earth was Sophie's grandad getting up to in that basement? It's more thrilling than a midnight drive through Paris in a Smart Car.

Send your reviews to [email protected] or find us on twitter @sharkliveroil

It's time for us to pull back the curtain, go through the looking-glass and break the silence around a conspiracy that has so far lain dormant, known only to the select few (80 million copies and counting) who dare to ask what the truth really is. WHAT ON EARTH is the position in which an elderly French art historian has been found in a locked gallery that is so shocking? IS THERE really only one emergency exit in the Louvre? WHAT PRECISELY was the Caravaggio painting torn from the wall in the first chapter? COULD IT BE that we might be having a bit too much fun with this book? The only way to find the truth is to listen on! As ever, hit us up with your thoughts, theories, rants and narrative poems to [email protected] or @sharkliveroil on Twitter.

Happy New Year! It's the second part of our read-through of Charles Dickens' The Chimes, and this narrative has not gone where we've expected. For a start, someone had a fairly solid supply of hallucinogens, and it wasn't either of us; Charlie, we're looking at you. Is Inception only a pale imitation of this, the first postmodernist book? Is it possible that Dallas was just making an epic literary callback with the famous it-was-all-a-dream reveal? (Spoilers)? And finally: when is someone literally going to write 'saxophones fade in' over the happy last scene of any novel? These questions and more, we need your help answering. Email us [email protected], or tweet us at @sharkliveroil.

Ho! Ho! Ho! And Meeeeeeerry Christmas!!! It's that time of year again and Shark Liver Oil is getting into the festive spirit with a readthrough of the second of Charles Dickens's Christmas stories - this one's called The Chimes! The Chimes!! Join us as we meet Toby as he tries valiantly to enjoy a cheery Christmas in the face of crushing English Upper Middle Class scorn. And there are goblins too. You've got to love the goblins. Get your feedback to us at [email protected] or on twitter @sharkliveroil and have a great Christmas! 

Ho! Ho! Ho! And Meeeeeeerry Christmas!!! It's that time of year again and Shark Liver Oil is getting into the festive spirit with a readthrough of the second of Charles Dickens's Christmas stories - this one's called The Chimes! The Chimes!! Join us as we meet Toby as he tries valiantly to enjoy a cheery Christmas in the face of crushing English Upper Middle Class scorn. And there are goblins too. You've got to love the goblins. Get your feedback to us at [email protected] or on twitter @sharkliveroil and have a great Christmas! 

It's the final part of our rollicking, fun-packed romp through that rollicking, fun-packed romp: Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory! This week, featuring the great questions of life: where do we draw our most fundamental identity from? How much influence do parents have over what we do with our lives? And what exactly is Chekhov's sheep? As always, get in touch with us - [email protected], @sharkliveroil - to let us know whether this is a masterpiece, a disasterpiece, or a meh-sterpiece.

It's the final part of our rollicking, fun-packed romp through that rollicking, fun-packed romp: Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory! This week, featuring the great questions of life: where do we draw our most fundamental identity from? How much influence do parents have over what we do with our lives? And what exactly is Chekhov's sheep? As always, get in touch with us - [email protected], @sharkliveroil - to let us know whether this is a masterpiece, a disasterpiece, or a meh-sterpiece.

Join us if you dare as we continue our journey through the hellish nightmare that is our latest book. There’s a drunken night out, two more kids get offed, Eric burns a dog and Frank considers doing unspeakable things to an old lady by way of a fridge freezer. It can only be the knockabout fun fest that is the Wasp Factory! We’ll be reviewing it next week, send your own reviews into us at [email protected] or find us on twitter @sharkliveroil

It's time for a trademark Shark Liver Oil screeching direction-change - this week we've gone for the impressive, compelling and (let's be honest) stomach-turning debut from Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory. That title, if you hadn't guessed, is ironic; there's less innocence here than in Hercule Poirot's drawing-room. This week, we're introduced to Frank (weird), Frank's Dad (very very precisely weird), and Frank's brother Eric (eating candles and smashing up phoneboxes; possibly the weirdest although that's a fierce contest). They live on top of a bomb, one of them technically doesn't exist, and they seem to agree that no-one could eat a family-size bag of crisps to themselves - we're through the looking-glass here, and we haven't even approached the top ten oddest things in this book yet. As always, get your thoughts, opinions and angry rants in to [email protected], or on Twitter @sharkliveroil.