Reviews 

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...

This is a very good book, but muscular and not an easy read. About millennial London, but quite unlike 684 or Lanchester’s ‘Capital’;...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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....

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...

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...

Reading this for bizarrely incorrect reason. Meant to read The Human Factor after enjoying 554 above, but both it and The Honorary...

Read this about a year ago with little comprehension. So the plot is: Querry, a successful and celebrity architect turns up in a Catholic...

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...

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...

Been meaning to read this for years, strange and paradoxically both difficult and easy to read. Very long and unfinished, in fact Gogol...

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...

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

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...