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Feb 18, 20221 min read
948. Henry James - Washington Square
A serious and classic novel in response to the above thoughts; I am not sure if I have read this before, although we bought it in 1978!...
Dec 24, 20201 min read
837. Émile Zola - Thérèse Raquin
I am reading these in chronological order as I find the complete works pretty un-navigable on my kindle. I have read this before, but...
May 18, 20181 min read
593. Edith Wharton - The Age Of Innocence
I have tried (I don’t think successfully) to read this is the past, but it is brilliant. The themes are all Henry James, but the cultural...
Jan 13, 20181 min read
566. Jane Austen - Emma
I found this quite hard work, but ultimately probably enjoyed it. Emma is a prototype unreliable narrator (although not the narrator in...
Nov 26, 20171 min read
552. Elizabeth Gaskell - Wives And Daughters
Tried to read this, I think 5 years ago at Stuart’s in Spain, but gave up. These 19th century novels are incredibly long, but I got to...
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,...
Sep 8, 20161 min read
428. Paul Scott - The Towers Of Silence
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...
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...
Aug 12, 20161 min read
424. Ivan Turgenev - Fathers And Sons
This is a lot easier than Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky; a quite light social comedy on the surface, although the central figure Bazarov...
Aug 5, 20161 min read
422. Patrick White - Voss
I am not sure that (if ever) I have read this since 1976 (when it is signed as a Xmas present for P). It is quite hard going, but pretty...
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...
Jun 8, 20151 min read
309. Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind
Book of the year so far. A real helicopter view of homo sapiens starting pretty well with the science and biology, ending with cyborgs...
Jul 6, 20141 min read
226. William Thackeray - Vanity Fair
Chose a long serious(?) book after all the Håkan Nessers, although it is hard work to read a book this long when not on holiday. Did I...
Mar 16, 20141 min read
188. Honoré de Balzac - A Harlot High And Low
This is a long and at times difficult book — quite different from no.187 in its breadth and a huge range of characters. Very difficult at...
Jan 11, 20141 min read
176. Albert Camus - The Outsider
Don’t know what prompted me to re-read this. It is very short, and I wasn’t feeling well when I read it and wrote the above. It is...
Jun 15, 20131 min read
118. Richard Brooks - The Great Tax Robbery
Journalist/ex tax inspector exposes the complicity between modern governments, capital and multinationals re tax avoidance, tax...
Jun 3, 20131 min read
112. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Trying to read some old books, preferably in paper, before we fly off to Spain. I enjoyed this more than I expected; the key bit of...
Jan 21, 20131 min read
73. John Lancaster - Capital
Pretty long, 10 days to read although it is January, and we have D+Z back from Australia. Plus, lots of snow (which hasn't interrupted...