DESPITE the huge row going on in the UK on whether to stay in Europe or not, it seems that book readers are lapping up European fiction.

THERE was an unusual travelling companion for Moire Boxall who was returning to Glasgow in Scotland from a visit to Queensland, Australia, reports The Guardian.

It's all a farce, these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o'er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.

I like to think it's spring in February when the very first snow drop pushes through the snow. But by the time you read this it will be May, the snowdrops have long retreated back into the soil and the garden is full of blossom, late tulips, primroses and all the rest. It is a time of new beginnings, of fresh hopes.

Graham Greene's novel, Brighton Rock, was set in the interwar years of racecourse gangs in Brighton, but in Rowan Joffe's adaptation it has been updated to the early 1960s, a world of running seaside battles between Mods and Rockers.

How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colours gleaming in the sun.