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Mar 21, 20131 min read
89. Leo Tolstoy - War & Peace
21.03.2013 Meanwhile, where I am now halfway through 'War & Peace', which I started post no.83. It is good but hard work - last night's...
Feb 17, 20131 min read
79. Graham Greene - Our Man In Havana
Didn't enjoy this for reasons I find hard to understand. Some Green is fantastic; others of his do little for me. In theory, I should...
Sep 29, 20121 min read
46. E.M. Forster - A Room With A View
Hadn't read this for years, if indeed ever. Very slow to get moving. I thought it was quite DH Lawrence-ish; love across the social...
Aug 10, 20121 min read
32. Charles Dickens - A Tale Of Two Cities
I normally hate Dickens and bought this on my Kindle just to show my dad that you can get an out of copyright book for free. Thought I...
Aug 2, 20121 min read
28. Oscar Wilde - The Importance Of Being Earnest
Read this as we are going to see it open-air next week. Just a vehicle for Wilde's wit with one-liners, but there is plenty of that. Get...
Jul 25, 20121 min read
27. Thomas Hardy - Tess Of The D'Urbervilles
Thought I had better read a non-crime book. Haven't read any Hardy for years; don't know quite what to make of this. Hardy obviously took...
Jun 14, 20121 min read
19. Graham Greene - Brighton Rock
I hated this; just couldn't get into it at all. Green should have stuck with the tortured Catholic middle-class world that he knew (or...
Jun 11, 20121 min read
17. Henry James - The Portrait Of A Lady
This is a wonderful book. I expected to find it hard work (it was at times) but as a chronicle of American naivety, Puritanism and I...
Jun 6, 20121 min read
14. Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary
I thought, rather to my surprise, that this was complete tosh. Badly written (or translated? I know Flaubert is supposed to be a master...
Jun 2, 20121 min read
11. George Eliot - Middlemarch
Hard work, but very, very good. Heard on Radio 4 news that 'if you are running a book club, don't choose this'. It is very long and has...
May 10, 20121 min read
8. William Shakespeare - King Lear
Haven't read this for about 40 years since studying it as an A-level set text. Found it surprisingly hard work; enjoyed it enormously at...