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Oct 7, 20221 min read
1019. Audrey MaGee - The Colony
Book of the year, so worth a re-read. Beautifully written, with sentences that bounce into quasi-verse and others that begin with one...
Sep 29, 20221 min read
1016. Audrey MaGee - The Colony
Book of the year for me, so far. Never heard of the author, got it out from the library as no.1015 above. Set on an island somewhere off...
Sep 17, 20221 min read
1012. James Joyce - Ulysses
I don’t normally write up a book I haven’t finished, but I will make an exception here. I have read it before (on holiday in Majorca...
Mar 22, 20221 min read
958. Colm Toibin - Brooklyn
I found this very slight. An Irish girl, struggling to find work in her hometown, goes to New York at the instigation of her local...
Mar 6, 20221 min read
953. Brian Moore - The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne
This is a wonderful book. Passion in the title has the ambiguity of sexual and religious passion. Judith Hearne, a lonely spinster in...
Jan 4, 20221 min read
930. Brian Moore - The Feast Of Lupercal
This is a wonderful book, that has somehow sat unread on the bookshelf for years, maybe since my dad died? Diarmuid Devine is a middle...
Oct 1, 20211 min read
901. Graham Norton - Home Stretch
I am inclined to an aversion for celebrity authors, but this is extremely good, and I’ll read his others. The plot begins with a young...
Sep 13, 20211 min read
894. Graham Masterson - Buried
Another fast paced thriller in the Katie Maguire series. These are maybe a bit repetitive, but they really are fast paced, often gruesome...
Sep 8, 20211 min read
892. Graham Masterson - Dead Girls Dancing
Another very good story. The technique, which works well, is to blend three or four bits of criminality into the plot – in this case a...
Sep 4, 20211 min read
891. Graham Masterson - Blood Sisters
This guy is very good. The books are full of very graphic violence, but are extremely well plotted and the central figure Kate Maguire is...
Aug 29, 20211 min read
889. Graham Masterson - The Last Drop Of Blood
Never heard of the author, just grabbed this from the library to read over the bank holiday week-end. And it is really good, probably one...
May 23, 20211 min read
862. Tana French - The Searcher
I have read I think all Tana French’s books but this is the best. I find her prose style can get a bit Jamesian and convoluted but not in...
Feb 6, 20201 min read
748. James Joyce - Dubliners
Triggered no doubt by no 746, I read these for probably the 3rd time in my life and enjoyed them more than previously. But enjoyed may...
Dec 29, 20191 min read
739. Siobhan Dowd - A Swift Pure Cry
Bought another one, as I finished 738 before being ready to sleep. This one is actually even better – about a 15 year old girl in Cork...
Dec 26, 20191 min read
738. Siobhan Dowd - Bog Child
Heard this on Radio 4 a few weeks ago and enjoyed it enough to read. It is very good; a coming of age novel about an 18 year old boy who...
Nov 13, 20191 min read
728. Tana French - The Likeness
This is a case of ‘make a really poor TV adaptation of a book (Dublin Murders BBC 1)’ and drive a reader back to the original book. This...
Jul 19, 20191 min read
969. Anna Burns - Milkman
Good, but very difficult read (assumed it had taken 2 weeks but seems to be only one). A dramatic monologue by the nameless narrator, a...
Jun 28, 20191 min read
692. Graham Norton - A Keeper
I had no idea this guys wrote books, as well as being a chat show host. I wouldn’t say this was very well written, but the plot was...
Feb 27, 20191 min read
663. John Boyne - A History Of Loneliness
Enjoyed 658, so thought I would try another. This was good and well written again, but I found the time shifts annoying and detracted...
Jan 18, 20181 min read
567. Edna O'Brien - The Country Girls
Not sure that I have ever read any Edna O’Brien before, if so a long time ago. Although set in rural, agricultural Ireland in (I am...