Books; Atonement, The Shallows and Books of Blood.

Having thrown Ian McEwan into my "Crotchety Old Man" writer basket, I made a point of avoiding his books. Even after watching the film version of Atonement, with the gorgeous Kiera Knightly having a darb in that absurdly sexy green dress, I was wary. But I was wrong.

Atonement grabs you from the start. Or at least it did me, but then again I have a soft spot for child villains. Even the sort-of unwitting ones. Although in my opinion. Briony knew exactly what she was doing. But even if that's not your thing, and I hear some people found the start a tad slow (not all of us have a soft-spot for English toffs swanning about, stewing in their own psyches) there's  a brilliant war section later on. I've never read the war described in such tawdry horror.