Reviews 

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...

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

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...

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...

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

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

Autobiography of the well known chef and restaurateur. I liked the guy more before reading this than after. A fairly spoiled and...

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