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Feb 3, 20231 min read
1046. John Boyne - The Echo Chamber
I quite enjoyed this. A comedy about a wealthy and overprivileged family in contemporary London, George a TV presenter having an affair...
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...
Aug 26, 20221 min read
1007. Clare Clark - Trespass
This is very good. A young trendy woman has had an affair and child with a political activist, who has subsequently disappeared. She...
May 10, 20221 min read
976. Emily Itami - Fault Lines
Read this again as it is book group tonight. I can’t say that it was much better on a second reading. The heroine was a slightly bohemian...
Apr 12, 20221 min read
967. Emily Itami - Fault Lines
I quite enjoyed this, although it is quite slight. A married Tokyo housewife, bored by her husband, who is a typical Japanese company...
Oct 24, 20211 min read
911. David Palin - This Changed Everthing
Definitely worth another read. A complex and at times bewildering thriller, which is difficult to do justice to without revealing the...
Aug 14, 20211 min read
884. Jodie Chapman - Another Life
This was very good, but I would have enjoyed it more if it had been written in a linear narrative, rather than with all the time shifts,...
May 7, 20141 min read
204. John Updike - Couples
Reluctantly, as I hate doing this, I am abandoning this almost halfway through. It is quite different from what I expected — a...
Apr 5, 20141 min read
195. Patrick Gale - The Whole Day Through
A beautiful (short) novel, about a couple who were literally a couple at university, meet in later life when he is married, have a brief...
Apr 4, 20141 min read
194. Olivia Manning - Friends & Heroes
Volume three of the above. They are now all in Athens, although only briefly as the Germans invade toward the end, and they flee on a...
Feb 16, 20141 min read
184. Ian McEwan - Sweet Tooth
Marketed as a spy thriller, this was, at best, a very literary take on the genre. I can’t pretend I liked it much; poorly written...
Oct 13, 20131 min read
155. Sebastian Faulks - On Green Dolphin Street
The last holiday book. I have read this before but couldn’t remember much. It is a love triangle between Charlie, a washed-out British...
Oct 10, 20131 min read
154. Graham Greene - A Burnt-out Case
This is a very strange book. It is about a successful Western Architect who appears to have had enough of everything and gives it all up...
Aug 25, 20131 min read
138. Peter Robinson - Children Of The Revolution
The new Inspector Banks, just published. The wonderful opening chapter (for me); Banks' anxiety about retirement plated out against...