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Oct 8, 20171 min read
538. Ali Smith - Autumn
Complete change from Herron, but this is very good as well. Written in bold, experimental and poetic prose, it features mainly 2...
Sep 28, 20171 min read
534. Cath Staincliffe - The Silence Between Breaths
Airport/aeroplane reading but this was completely different. A disparate group of characters are travelling Manchester to Euston in the...
Sep 23, 20171 min read
528. Susie Steiner - Homecoming
Her first book, pre Manon. I loved it in places. The ending was a bit dull. Basically an everyday tale of sheep farming in N Yorkshire -...
Sep 15, 20171 min read
523. Susie Steiner - Missing Presumed
Wanted to re-read no. 488 to better understand the back-plot to 521. Fly (the adopted son) appears, but the sister and her baby only...
Sep 9, 20171 min read
521. Susie Steiner - Persons Unknown
What a contrast to Joanna Trollope. The 2nd book in what I hope will become the Manon series, about a policewoman in Huntingdon. (488 was...
Jun 14, 20171 min read
498. John Lewis-Stempel - The Wild Life
A book about living off the land for a year. The author decided to live entirely off natural produce (animals he could kill, stuff...
May 20, 20171 min read
488. Susie Steiner - Missing Presumed
Brilliant new book, brilliant new author. Very cleverly plotted although the phrase from The 4 Quartets at the beginning rather gives...
Mar 7, 20171 min read
471. Adam Sisman - John Lee Carré (The Biography)
A late Xmas present from B. Very good (and long) book; Le Carré’s adult life mirrors much of my (actual) life, so much of the terrain...
Jan 14, 20171 min read
460. Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
A Christmas best seller for middle aged men (I am told). I thought this was very good; Springsteen is a pretty honest guy, not at all...
Sep 19, 20161 min read
430. Paul Scott - Staying On
The sequel to 'The Raj Quartet', and very different in lots of ways. I suppose essentially a tragi-comedy, about Tusker and Lucy Smalley,...
Sep 16, 20161 min read
429. Paul Scott - A Division Of The Spoils
These are big long books and it has taken a week to read each one. Guy Perron (Charles Dance on the TV) finally appears in this one and...
Sep 8, 20161 min read
428. Paul Scott - The Towers Of Silence
Barbie now comes into focus. The whole thing is quite brilliant and I am amazed that he is not better known as a writer, and how long it...
Sep 2, 20161 min read
427. Paul Scott - The Day Of The Scorpion
Continued brilliance. Sarah Layton quite prominent in this book, which ends with her losing her virginity. To what extent is her sexual...
Aug 25, 20161 min read
426. Paul Scott - The Jewel In The Crown
Book of the year so fay, and by a long stretch. I have read this before, and we have watched and enjoyed the Granada DVD many times, but...
May 27, 20161 min read
403. Helen Stevenson - Love Like Salt
P’s book of the year so far, but not mine. The memoir of a woman who has a daughter with cystic fibrosis, who goes to live in France with...
Oct 16, 20151 min read
345. Elizabeth Strout - The Burgess Boys
P enjoyed this, but I didn’t much. You can tell it is a ‘good quality’ novel, but I just didn’t warm to it. The Burgess' are a couple of...
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...
Apr 21, 20151 min read
299. Tom Rob Smith - Child 44
I didn’t think much of this. A crime thriller of sorts set in Stalinist and post-Stalinist USSR. The problem I had with it is that...
Apr 1, 20151 min read
292. Rick Stein - Under A Mackerel Sky
Autobiography of the well known chef and restaurateur. I liked the guy more before reading this than after. A fairly spoiled and...
Jan 19, 20151 min read
277. Maggie Shipstead - Seating Arrangements
This was very good, especially given that the author is in her early 30’s. About a wedding party on an island I think off New England,...