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Aug 10, 20171 min read
511. Thomas Hardy - Tess Of The d'Urbervilles
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...
Jul 27, 20171 min read
509. George Eliot - Adam Bede
I have never read this, and enjoyed it, perhaps, more than I expected. Eliot is a heavy themed writer, swinging between good quality...
Jun 11, 20171 min read
496. Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
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...
Feb 22, 20171 min read
469. Jane Austen - Sense And Sensibility
I found this difficult and hard work. The two sisters (Elinor – sense) and (Marianne – which I think means passion) both fall in love...
Sep 24, 20161 min read
432. Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim
After my dismissive comment at no.429 above, I thought I should re- read Amis (I think this is the only book of his I have ever read,...
Aug 17, 20161 min read
425. Edith Wharton - The Age Of Innocence
Another book unread (by me) since May 1977, when we bought it. I couldn’t (quite) get into it; it was good in parts, but the narrative...
Jul 13, 20161 min read
417b. Joseph Conrad - Nostromo: A Tale Of The Seaboard
I hate this but after about 160 pages I gave up on this. It was all unmitigated hard work. So I didn’t progress any further. Very...
Jun 23, 20161 min read
414. Graham Greene - The Power And The Glory
Returned from holiday feeling quite alienated from reading and as a result struggled to get into this book (I must index this list as I...
Jun 7, 20161 min read
408. Charles Dickens - David Copperfield
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...
Apr 3, 20161 min read
389. Emily Bronté - Wuthering Heights
Hadn’t read this before; quite hard work but interesting book, particularly given publication pre 1850. Maybe there were lots of similar...
Mar 27, 20161 min read
387. Henry James - The Ambassadors
Bought in February 1977 from the 2nd hand book store in the town where we then lived, but never as far as I can tell, read until now. One...
Mar 19, 20161 min read
385. Elizabeth Gaskell - North And South
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...
Oct 8, 20151 min read
343. Joseph Conrad - Heart Of Darkness
I read this to compare and contrast with no.342 above, and despite being better known and perhaps regarded, I thought it was pretty dire....
Oct 3, 20151 min read
342. Joseph Conrad - Lord Jim
Had been meaning, not very actively, to re-read this for some time, partly to remind myself of the plot. It is actually very good. What...
Jul 24, 20151 min read
322. Émile Zola - La Faute De L'Abbé Mouret
I didn’t read it in French, but don’t like the English translation (‘Abbe Mouret’s Transgression’ which misses half of the point) in my...
Jun 13, 20151 min read
312. George Eliot - Felix Holt: The Radical
I suppose a pre-cursor of Middlemarch, this centres on the 1832 general election, which seems to have post-dated some electoral reform....
Jun 9, 20151 min read
310. Jane Austen - Pride And Prejudice
And now for something completely different, Paddy’s aeroplane reading, rather classier than mine. I haven’t read this for years and my...
May 31, 20151 min read
307. Émile Zola - A Love Episode
I wouldn’t have chosen this, but it is very difficult to navigate a Complete Works on a kindle. This is an odd book, about a widow with a...
May 15, 20151 min read
303. Joseph Conrad - Victory
A bit of a need to read something masculine and classic (no connection meant) after the above. Leaves thinks highly of this, and, having...
Jan 10, 20151 min read
276. Émile Zola - Thérèse Raquin
I enjoyed 'Germinal' hugely and 'La Terre' quite a lot, but this, at best was like an early Shakespeare if you had started with say 'King...