Reviews 

So pissed off with my new kindle (see 667) that I will read anything in paper rather than spend money with Amazon. But I can’t get on...

The 4th and final novel of the sequence. I never normally read books out of sequence but P had this from the library and we have watched...

I had never read this and really enjoyed it, although probably a holiday/beach read. Written with great power, anger and a lot of...

Triggered by 509; these Victorian (or maybe post in Hardy’s case) novelists are so prolix; 450 pages. The plot wasn’t that similar to...

I have never read this, and enjoyed it, perhaps, more than I expected. Eliot is a heavy themed writer, swinging between good quality...

I had never read this and quite enjoyed it (P, who is more of an Austen fan than me, read it a few days later and didn’t, oddly). Read...

Possibly her first (famous or actual first?) book. Good, but difficult and hard work. The main narrative is a Tristram Shandy like...

The new Banks novel, based (topically) on Jimmy Saville (the newly promoted Banks investigates and Winsome) and grooming white working...

A strange book, based among the poor working and criminal class in Modern Cork city. Couldn’t really work out the genre; crimes, but no...

This is by a university academic about the rise of UKIP. Full of (to me) uninteresting graphs, but the basic narrative was quite...

A follow on from Lucky Jim. Interesting these post-war working class boys (if the authors really were) who are interested in different...

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...

I always try to take one big, difficult book on holiday, and am not a fan of Dickens, but persevere. Fairly typical of what I dislike...

Another one from Bristol. I had read this years ago. Found it quite hard going; she doesn’t write very fluently about people so the...

Bought this, slightly conned by Waterstones’ promotion, as it is being serialised on the TV. Don’t think I have read a Le Carré since...

This is very good; totally different, potentially difficult but beautifully written and so easy to read. Set in late 17th century...

Didn’t plan to read another Zola, but finished no.356 unexpectedly in bed and needed something else to read. Zola is a terribly prolix...

This is a very grim book, in the vein of 'La Terre', but set amongst the Parisian working class. The central figure is Gervaise, who has...

What a wonderful title! And a wonderful book, possibly highlight of the year so far. The story of a family, largely a man, spanning the...

And now for something completely different, Paddy’s aeroplane reading, rather classier than mine. I haven’t read this for years and my...