Reviews

Sep 3, 20221 min read

1010. Helen Fitzgerald - Viral

"I sucked twelve cocks in Magaluf" is an opening sentence to rival Jane Austen or Tolstoy. Subtitled "what if the worst thing you did...

Aug 21, 20221 min read

1005. Karen Joy Fowler - The Jane Austen Book Club

I enjoyed this, but not as much as P did. A group of Californian women (+1 man) set up what the title indicates and discuss a book a...

Apr 23, 20221 min read

969. Elena Ferrante - The Lying Life Of Adults

I enjoyed the beginning of this, but as it progressed the similarities to (and repetitions of) My Brilliant Friend began to proliferate....

Dec 14, 20211 min read

922. Sebastian Faulks - Snow Country

I enjoyed this, but don’t think I read it very well. It is quite a modest novel by Faulkes’ standards – no big themes, set in and around...

Nov 15, 20211 min read

915. Sebastian Faulks - Charlotte Gray

This is a brilliant book. I am not sure I had ever completed it before (the left had side of the spine is suspiciously unbent) and I had...

May 23, 20211 min read

862. Tana French - The Searcher

I have read I think all Tana French’s books but this is the best. I find her prose style can get a bit Jamesian and convoluted but not in...

Apr 17, 20211 min read

856. Maggie O'Farrell - Hamnet

I enjoyed this, particularly the last quarter after the boy’s death, but struggled with the early chapters where there were (for me) too...

Dec 3, 20201 min read

831. Stephen Fay & David Kynaston - Arlott, Swanton And The Soul...

The full title continues ‘of English cricket'. But I couldn’t really work out whether it was a parallel biography of these 2 cricket...

Aug 28, 20201 min read

811. Gustav Flaubert - Madam Bovary

Inspired by 809 (Baudelaire and Flaubert contemporary and controversial) to re-read this. Remarkably (despite 14) I really enjoyed this,...

Dec 6, 20191 min read

734. Ken Follett - The Man From St. Petersburg

An Xmas present from Cristina next door, who is I think a fan and may even have met the guy. Very good, not the sort of book or writer I...

Nov 13, 20191 min read

728. Tana French - The Likeness

This is a case of ‘make a really poor TV adaptation of a book (Dublin Murders BBC 1)’ and drive a reader back to the original book. This...

Sep 10, 20191 min read

714. William Faulkner - Light In August

Always try to read one big chunky classic novel on holiday and chose this, for some reason this year. A big and difficult novel, about...

May 26, 20191 min read

686. John Fowles - The French Lieutenants Woman

Bought 1977, so probably haven’t read for 40+ years! Brilliant, hasn’t aged at all and I had minimal memory of either the book or (I am...

Mar 20, 20191 min read

669. E. M. Forster - A Room With A View

So pissed off with my new kindle (see 667) that I will read anything in paper rather than spend money with Amazon. But I can’t get on...

Dec 22, 20181 min read

646. Elena Ferrante - The Story Of The Lost Child

The 4th and final novel of the sequence. I never normally read books out of sequence but P had this from the library and we have watched...

Jun 9, 20181 min read

596. Sebastian Faulks - A Fool's Alphabet

This was quite a difficult book; I have read it before, but assume a long time ago. But as it progressed, I enjoyed it more and it is...

Oct 19, 20171 min read

543. Adam Federman - Fasting And Feasting

Another one not completed sadly, I don’t like this. A birthday present from P (like 539) so another unread. Nothing particularly wrong...

Sep 24, 20171 min read

529. Caz Frears - Sweet Little Lies

Quite a good modern female detective novel. Easily televisable I think. Plot clever, although maybe not all that believable in places,...

Dec 27, 20161 min read

456. Robert Ford & Matthew Goodwin - Revolt On The Right

This is by a university academic about the rise of UKIP. Full of (to me) uninteresting graphs, but the basic narrative was quite...

Jul 31, 20151 min read

324. F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender Is The Night

Tried starting this two years ago in Spain; couldn’t get into it. A bit of a curate’s egg; some of his writing is excellent; some less...