Reviews

The reviews that make me laugh, on Harley's behalf, are in motorcycle magazines like Motorbike Writer of Brisbane and Ultimate Motorcycling of Wisconsin, where he shares space with Kawasakis and Triumphs and his namesake Harley-Davidsons.

I am nervous about reviews by people who know a lot more than me about the subject. So it was a relief to read Diana Farr Louis, a veteran writer of travel and gastronomy, in Athens Insider.

The prolific travel writer Chrissie Walker was also complimentary in the journal Mostly Food and Travel.

The Midwest Book Review sounds niche but in fact it's the go-to reference for academic libraries and booksellers all over the USA. Harley is on the Christian Studies Shelf so I hope he will give budding theologians a giggle.

I feared I would be cast into the outer darkness by theFriends Of Mount Athos (Patron HRH The Prince of Wales) for blasphemy or at least irreverence. The Chairman, Graham Speake, whose own book about Mount Athos, Renewal in Paradise is the authority, thought well enough of Harley to include him in the Annual Report.

Women are banned on Athos so it was gracious of the Women's International Group South to give him a write-up.

A critical review by William Mallinson, a distinguished academic historian and commentator on the Balkans, was from a different perspective.

Amazon and others carry reader reviews, including the odd lone star among the constellations. But you never know the most important reviews, those by people who tell their friends to buy it or (gnash-gnash - get over it) lend it on. Like children, books have a life of their own. You let them go and catch only the occasional glimpse as they make their own way in the world.