Graham O Neill: 5 books

The Bike Ride is a humorous account of a three day cycle ride across the south of England which due to negligible planning, an abysmal lack of preparation and poor eyesight was considerably more taxing than it needed to be. With a mistake waiting to be made around every tortuous bend and a near beating on the way, this essay can best be described as the diary of an incompetent cyclist.

There is an island, it’s only just an island, you can drive onto it without even noticing that you are leaving the mainland. Nevertheless, an island it is. And on this island stands a Victorian pub. Today, a casual visitor can enjoy a well-kept pint and good food, totally unaware of the dark secret that lurks beneath them.

Until a stray cat wandered into my life, I disliked the supposedly domesticated version of the feline species with a passion bordering on paranoia; in hindsight this was mainly due to ignorance on my part. Terry Pratchett is credited with stating... 'In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.' I reckon he was onto something.

Another tale of misadventure from the author of 'The Bike Ride'. This time a £200 car conveys an intrepid team of adventurers from Milton Keynes to Prague and into a potentially lethal encounter.

‘take a breath…’ consists of a series of lighthearted anecdotes and observations about the pursuit of freediving. It explores both the thrill and a smattering of the science associated with breath-hold diving, but it is definitely not a ‘How-To’ guide. Indeed, some of the exploits described...