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Feb 22, 20191 min read
661. Daphne Du Maurier - Rebecca
This was very good; neither Paddy nor I had read it before, but it is a rattlingly good plot with bits of Jane Eyre influence. A gauche...
Feb 15, 20191 min read
659. Michael Ondaatje - Warlight
I struggled with the first half of this book which seemed almost Dickensian in its slow development. 2 kids are abandoned by their...
Oct 13, 20181 min read
632. Nell Stevens - Mrs Gaskell And Me
A library book of Paddy's. Couldn’t entirely make this out – an eponymous (Nell Stevens) PhD student in London has a love affair which...
Dec 14, 20171 min read
557. Catherine Banner - The House At The Edge Of Night
One of P’s library books. I thought this was pretty good for a first novel; a big long chronicle covering the last 100 years or so of a...
Nov 4, 20171 min read
547. Helen Dunmore - Burning Bright
I thought this was very good. A thriller, gay female love story/ romance. A young girl Nadine is moved into a Bristol flat by her...
Sep 12, 20171 min read
522. Lisa Jewell - I Found You
One of Paddy’s from the library. I loved this (as did she). Romance/thriller set in a seaside north Yorkshire village, starting with a...
Apr 22, 20171 min read
482. Susan Lewis - The Moment She Left
The 3rd of Paddy’s library books, after burn out with Tana French. If 480 was brilliant and 481 execrable, this was middling. The genre...
Mar 9, 20171 min read
472. Victoria Hislop - Cartes Postales From Greece
This is quite a nice book; beautifully illustrated with post card pictures from Greece. A young bored Londoner begins to receive...
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...
Dec 13, 20161 min read
452. Julie Cohen - Falling
Another that Paddy enjoyed from the library. I guess this is chic-lit, and on the whole I enjoyed it. Made me think about the difference...
Aug 25, 20161 min read
426. Paul Scott - The Jewel In The Crown
Book of the year so fay, and by a long stretch. I have read this before, and we have watched and enjoyed the Granada DVD many times, but...
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...
May 21, 20161 min read
401. Joseph Conrad - The Secret Agent
I don’t know when I last read this book, but I thought it was absolutely wonderful this time round. It is quite beautifully constructed;...
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...
Sep 20, 20151 min read
338. Sebastian Faulks - Charlotte Gray
Took this to Spain for aeroplane reading. I had remembered it mainly as a ‘French resistance’ novel with the dropped in British heroine,...
Aug 29, 20151 min read
333. Kate Atkinson - A God In Ruins
As it is a library book, due back 5 September, I thought worth another read. It is actually quite an old fashioned novel, reminded me at...
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...
Nov 9, 20131 min read
161. Kate Furnivall - Shadows Of The Nile
A swop with Paddy for no.159. Very different and hard to place genre-wise. Part historical romance, part derring-do adventure, part...
Jul 30, 20131 min read
132. Salley Vickers - The Cleaner Of Chartres
Paddy recommended this and I read a lot of it probably not in a great mood. About an orphan girl, and a goof cast of Gallic characters in...
Jun 21, 20121 min read
21. Elizabeth Gaskell - Wives And Daughters
Couldn't finish this post-holiday, so read about half. OK in the sun in Spain, not post return to work in the gloom of an English...