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Oct 8, 20231 min read
1098. Anne Tyler - French Braid
Never read any before, and found this beautifully written but hard work to read. Like a porcelain statue. The plot, as I remember it,...
May 25, 20231 min read
1067. Chris Van Tulleken - Ultra Processed People
Although a lot of the science in this book was way beyond me, it is brilliant. Written by a fairly well-known TV medic, it is an...
Dec 5, 20221 min read
1034. Harriet Tyce - Blood Orange
I have read this before, but have no memory of it, I think, except for a scene where the daughter is lost on Hampstead Heath. There is a...
Mar 22, 20221 min read
958. Colm Toibin - Brooklyn
I found this very slight. An Irish girl, struggling to find work in her hometown, goes to New York at the instigation of her local...
Dec 11, 20211 min read
921. Colm Tóibín - The Magician
Never read any by this guy before, but from the bibliography, at the start, I should; he sounds a bit like Antony Burgess, mixing fiction...
Jan 26, 20211 min read
844. Anne Tyler - Clock Dance
I found the first 200 or so pages quite dull, but loved the last 150. Middle class girl, becomes woman and mother with quite a boring...
Dec 28, 20201 min read
839. Sandi Toksvig - Between The Stops
Book of the year so far. A lovely book by a lovely and very funny woman (I loved her hosting of ‘The News Quiz’, can’t get into Q1...
Dec 26, 20201 min read
838. Mara Timon - City Of Spies
I enjoyed this, despite being irritated at times. Quite a big canvass for a debut novel. Set mainly in Lisbon in the middle of the 2nd...
Sep 7, 20201 min read
812. Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
Thought I should follow the first great 19th century novel about adultery with the 2nd, but it is long (850 pages). Completely different...
Aug 16, 20201 min read
807. Harriet Tyce - Blood Orange
Spent my Xmas token from Dan at last (covid). This was at best a beach read, and not really very good. Implausibly over-sexed 40 year old...
Jun 14, 20191 min read
689. DJ Taylor - Rock And Roll Is Life
A library book of Paddy’s. She liked it, I didn’t much, although one would have expected the opposite, given that I am more into rock and...
May 30, 20191 min read
687. Ivan Turgenev - Fathers And Sons
Although I think regarded as a classic of 19th century Russian literature, I thought this had dated badly and didn’t really enjoy it. My...
May 3, 20181 min read
589. Josephine Tey - The Franchise Affair
I quite like Josephine Tey, although this book had its longeurs. But it is well written and readable. The plot involves an elderly mother...
Apr 13, 20181 min read
586. Josephine Tey - The Daughter Of Time
This was clever and perhaps one of the first (? I have no idea) books to debunk conventional historical knowledge; no that is not right...
Apr 8, 20181 min read
584. Josephine Tey - To Love And Be Wise
Never read any of her books, but heard them recommended on the radio. I thought this was very good, beautifully written, clever plotting...
Apr 6, 20181 min read
583. Anthony Trollope - Barchester Towers
I have never read this before and perhaps because I am not in a very receptive phase didn’t enjoy it, although struggled to understand...
Sep 6, 20171 min read
520. Joanna Trollope - City of Friends
I don’t normally write about books I haven’t managed to finish, but this was execrable. Four posh and over-privileged women wanking on...
Apr 17, 20171 min read
481. Lynne Truss - Tennyson's Gift
I gave up on this before even discovering what Tennyson’s Gift was. A tedious reconstruction of a (possible or actual, I never got that...
Aug 12, 20161 min read
424. Ivan Turgenev - Fathers And Sons
This is a lot easier than Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky; a quite light social comedy on the surface, although the central figure Bazarov...
Jul 7, 20161 min read
417. Paul Torday - The Death Of An Owl
Yet another via P as I can’t choose books for myself at the moment. This, sadly, was completed by his son as Torday died just before it...