WHAT’S ON

SOMETHING FOR THE COMEDY LOVERS

LLOYD GRIFFIN: NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE 13TH SEP The Glee Club

IAIN STIRLING 28TH SEP The Glee Club

GEMMA COLLINS 16TH OCT St David’s Hall

ROSS NOBLE 21ST OCT St David’s Hall

SOMETHING FOR THE RUGBY FANS

WALES V NEW ZEALAND 30TH OCT Principality Stadium

WALES V SOUTH AFRICA 6TH NOV Principality Stadium WALES V FIJI 14TH NOV Principality Stadium

WALES V AUSTRALIA 20TH NOV Principality Stadium

WHAT’S ON

SOMETHING FOR THE CONCERTGOER

NILE RODGERS & CHICK 19TH SEP Cardiff Bay Barrage

AN EVENING OF QUEEN 26TH SEP Sophia Gardens

BECKY HILL 17TH OCT Cardiff University’s Student Union

PALOMA FAITH 18TH OCT Motorpoint Arena

JLS 25TH-31ST OCT Motorpoint Arena

AJ TRACEY 19TH NOV Motorpoint Arena

BOOKS / REVIEWS

LITERARY Life

CLASSIC FICTION:

Lord of the Flies (Faber & Faber,

£8.99) by Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding focuses on a group of boys stranded on a desert island and their increasingly brutal and disastrous attempts to govern themselves. Two boys – the main character Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled character called “Piggy” – find a conch which is used to rally the boys and later to moderate their meetings. Gradually Ralph’s authority is usurped by a rival group of boys whose behavior turns increasingly sadistic. Rejected by many publishers – with one editor describing it as an ‘absurd and uninteresting fantasy - it was finally accepted by Faber & Faber and published in 1954 to positive reviews. It was named in the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels, and was recently ranked third in a poll of the nation’s favourite books from school. FACTUAL FAVOURITE: One of the finest non-fiction books of recent years was The

Big Short (£9.99)

by American author Michael Lewis, the inside story of how a small group of American investors anticipated the collapse of the US mortgage bond market that started the global financial crash in 2008. By turns revealing and shocking, the books lays bare the scandal of the American sub-prime mortgage market, and the hubris and greed that led to disaster. The protagonists of the book make a fortune by betting against the market; the rest of us paid the price. It was later turned into a gripping film of the same name in 2015. IN THE NEWS: Timed beautifully to coincide with his heroics at the Tokyo Olympics, where he won Gold and Bronze, British diver Tom Daley’s autobiography

Coming Up For Air (HarperCollins, £20)

is published this autumn. Its blurb promises a “deeply personal and inspiring memoir from one of the most celebrated and influential names in British sport”. Certainly his unflinching honesty about “reclaiming the narrative around his sexuality” is a sign that the book will be both insightful and moving, and a guaranteed Christmas bestseller. Monmouth-born Saul David is a historian, novelist and broadcaster. His many critically acclamed history books include The Indian Munity (shortlisted for the Westminister Medal for Military Literature), Zulu (a Watersone's Military History Book of the Year) and Operation Thunderbolt (an Amazon History Book of the Year.)

BOOK OF THE MOMENT: Distinguished British historian Richard Overy has just published his long-awaited single-volume history of the Second World War, Blood and

Ruins (Allen

Lane, £40), and it’s nothing less than a masterpiece. Identifying empire as the key to understanding not only the cause of the conflict, but also its course and consequences, the author provides ten themed chapters that cover subjects as diverse as imperial fantasies, mobilization for total war, methods of fighting, economic warfare, morality and war neuroses. Hardly a sentence is wasted as the author brilliantly distills years of scholarship into these tightly focused essays, each of which can stand alone, but together provide one of the most compelling surveys of conflict ever written.

MY News

My new book SBS: Silent Warriors – the first authorised wartime history of Britain’s secretive maritime special forces unit, our version of the US Navy SEALs - was published on 2 September. I’ve already signed almost 3,000 copies so the early signs could not be more positive. It was No. 4 in this week's Sunday Times bestsellers.