Reviews

Apr 24, 20231 min read

1060. Katherine Rundell - Super-Infinite

Another Edinburgh book, which P purchased. An artistic biography of John Donne. Seems to have been much lauded, but I am not a huge fan...

Nov 20, 20221 min read

1030. Lucy Worsley - Agatha Christie

I really enjoyed her book about Jane Austen, but found this a bit dull. Having no interest in Agatha Christie or her books probably...

Dec 17, 20211 min read

923. Lucy Worsley - Jane Austen At Home

This is really good – I expected a rather frothy and lightweight book from a woman who likes to prance around in period costume in her TV...

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...

Apr 9, 20201 min read

764. Francesca Wade - Square Haunting

One of Paddy’s. A rather severe academic book about 5 women (Virginia Woolf, the poet HD, Dorothy Sayers, Jane Harrison, a Cambridge...

Dec 15, 20181 min read

645. Kate Humble - Thinking On My Feet

A book about walking. I enjoyed this more as it went on; initially it struck me as a bit ‘forced’, as if she or her publisher had decided...

Jul 28, 20181 min read

613. Craig Brown - Ma'am Darling

A pretty atrocious book about a pretty atrocious person (Princess Margaret). Subtitled ’99 Glimpses of’ her, not one of these was...

Jun 17, 20181 min read

600. Laura Barnett - Greatest Hits

One of Paddy’s, the fictionalised biography of an English, Sandy Denny type and era folk/rock singer (born c1950 so of our era)....

Jan 22, 20181 min read

568. Susan Hill - Jacob's Room Is Full Of Books

One of Paddy’s. I enjoyed it more to start with (possibly contrast) than by the end. She is a rather pompous woman and there is plenty of...

Jan 2, 20181 min read

564. Shaun Bythell - The Diary Of A Bookseller

Dan gave this to Paddy for Xmas. The author is a 2nd hand bookseller in Wigtown, a small Scottish town in Galloway, not far from...

Oct 19, 20171 min read

543. Adam Federman - Fasting And Feasting

Another one not completed sadly, I don’t like this. A birthday present from P (like 539) so another unread. Nothing particularly wrong...

Sep 25, 20171 min read

530. Tim Heald - Brian Johnston, The Authorised Biography

A change from the novels, but this was (I wrote pretty lightweight) but with hindsight I would say execrable. From the hotel library. Get...

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...

Feb 11, 20171 min read

466. Artemis Cooper - Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence

This is a very good biography of Elizabeth Jane Howard, whose Cazalet novels I enjoyed a year or 2 ago, and who was married to Peter...

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...

Dec 25, 20161 min read

455. John Cleese - So Anyway...

An autobiographical fragment, covering odd bits of his life. Covered school, university and early showbiz career, roughly up to Monty...

Jan 10, 20161 min read

369. James Booth - Philip Larkin: Life, Art And Love

An Xmas present from B, maybe with Larkin’s most famous opening line in mind. (?) I started hating it, seeing it as a typically footnoted...

Jul 25, 20151 min read

323. Rebecca Mead - The Road To Middlemarch

I found this hard work. If I had wanted to read a biography of George Eliot, I’d have done so. By the end of it, I felt somewhat...

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...

Feb 9, 20131 min read

77. Bruce Duffy - The World As I Found It

A huge book, mainly I guess a fictionalised (although this seems controversial among the critics) biography of Wittgenstein. Pretty...