Search
Jan 2, 20201 min read
740. Graham Greene - The End Of The Affair
I haven’t read this for years; it is quite a difficult book and one’s memory of it is slightly overwritten by the film. Bendrick’s anger...
Jun 25, 20191 min read
691. Linda Grant - A Stranger City
This is a very good book, but muscular and not an easy read. About millennial London, but quite unlike 684 or Lanchester’s ‘Capital’;...
May 12, 20191 min read
682. William Golding - The Pyramid
A strange book about English provincial life, set unclearly in time, but I think in the 1930’s. The central figure is an adolescent boy...
Feb 9, 20191 min read
657. Imogen Hermes Gowar - The Mermaid And Mrs Hancock
A huge novel in the modish genre of bolting modern themes into a historic period; in this case late 18th century London. Mr Hancock is a...
Oct 29, 20181 min read
635. Patrick Gale - A Perfectly Good Man
Planned to read this before we went to Croatia, at which point my kindle rejected the card. No pun intended, since it is primarily about...
Oct 20, 20181 min read
634. Patrick Gale - Take Nothing With You
The perfect book for gay male cellists. Much as I enjoyed this, it did strike me (unless I am missing something) that this was really two...
Sep 11, 20181 min read
621. Patrick Gale - Notes From An Exhibition
Re-read this on the plane and on arrival in Dubrovnik. One of my favourite books ever; I love the way he introduces the characters...
Jul 30, 20181 min read
614. Graham Greene - The Tenth Man
A very slight novelette, written as a film script when Greene was contracted to Hollywood post war as he couldn’t fund life from writing....
Jul 20, 20181 min read
611. Graham Greene - The Comedians
Took me a long time to read this (not long) book, but a lot of sport on TV and I struggled to get into it. The characters all have banal...
May 12, 20181 min read
591. Terry Goodkind - The Girl In The Moon
Tried to read 2 other books this week but gave up and went to the library. This is a very poor quality book, although it is fast paced....
Mar 20, 20181 min read
579. Graham Greene - Brighton Rock
This is interesting because I first read this in June 2012 (no 19) and hated it! 6 years later I thought it was pretty good; not that...
Dec 9, 20171 min read
556. Graham Greene - The Human Factor
This is the book I meant to read, a domestic spy story, but very good. Maurice Castle is a minor functionary in the security services in...
Dec 7, 20171 min read
555. Graham Greene - The Honorary Consul
Reading this for bizarrely incorrect reason. Meant to read The Human Factor after enjoying 554 above, but both it and The Honorary...
Dec 2, 20171 min read
554. Graham Greene - A Burnt Out Case
Read this about a year ago with little comprehension. So the plot is: Querry, a successful and celebrity architect turns up in a Catholic...
Nov 26, 20171 min read
552. Elizabeth Gaskell - Wives And Daughters
Tried to read this, I think 5 years ago at Stuart’s in Spain, but gave up. These 19th century novels are incredibly long, but I got to...
Nov 7, 20171 min read
548. Patrick Gale - Rough Music
Tried to read this (I think again) in the summer but without success. I don’t know what the name changes of the son and daughter are...
Oct 28, 20171 min read
545. Nicolai Gogol - Dead Souls
Been meaning to read this for years, strange and paradoxically both difficult and easy to read. Very long and unfinished, in fact Gogol...
Aug 17, 20171 min read
514. Graham Greene - The Third Man
During a sleepless night on 15 August, I began re-reading Patrick Gale’s Rough Music on my kindle as a bit of emergency late night...
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...
Jun 23, 20161 min read
414. Graham Greene - The Power And The Glory
Returned from holiday feeling quite alienated from reading and as a result struggled to get into this book (I must index this list as I...