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Dec 1, 20221 min read
1033. Audrey Magee - The Undertaking
This is her first book, and very different from The Colony (no.1019). Set in 1940’s Germany, the central figures are a soldier on the...
Jan 28, 20221 min read
940. Robert Harris - V2
Quite a well known author, but I am not sure I have read much (if any) before. This is a bit of historical fiction, about the V2 rocket...
Dec 11, 20211 min read
921. Colm Tóibín - The Magician
Never read any by this guy before, but from the bibliography, at the start, I should; he sounds a bit like Antony Burgess, mixing fiction...
Nov 15, 20211 min read
915. Sebastian Faulks - Charlotte Gray
This is a brilliant book. I am not sure I had ever completed it before (the left had side of the spine is suspiciously unbent) and I had...
Nov 7, 20211 min read
914. Cristina Loggia - Lucifer's Game
This is a pretty good WW2 thriller, set in Italy. It reminded me a bit of Sebastian Faulks’ Charlotte Grey. I didn’t like the title, as...
Sep 26, 20211 min read
898. Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue
I think I may have read one of his before – a trilogy called 'Berlin Noir', many years ago. This was long and ponderous at times, but a...
Jun 5, 20211 min read
864. Kate Quinn - The Rose Code
I enjoyed this, although it is a bit of a ‘girlie’ book. The three central characters are all female, and the men were largely ciphers in...
Apr 23, 20211 min read
857. Reginald Hill - Child's Play
Thought I would go for something a bit lighter. Had read this before and possibly seen it on the TV, many years ago. It is the one in...
Dec 26, 20201 min read
838. Mara Timon - City Of Spies
I enjoyed this, despite being irritated at times. Quite a big canvass for a debut novel. Set mainly in Lisbon in the middle of the 2nd...
Nov 22, 20201 min read
828. William Boyd - Any Human Heart
Needed a book with a with nice linear narrative after some of the longeurs of the previous few. This was wonderful. A fictionalised diary...
Aug 8, 20201 min read
805. Piers Paul Read - The Junkers
One that I am sure we used to have. An English diplomat in Berlin in the late 1950’s falls in love with a German girl, and needs to trace...
May 5, 20201 min read
773. Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
This is a lovely book. Saw the film on the TV last week and discovered that our next door neighbour had given the book (twice) to Paddy...
Jan 22, 20201 min read
745. Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient
This is a wonderful, but still (at 3rd or 4th reading) difficult book. Is it (just) 4 symbolic characters at the end of the 2nd world war...
Sep 6, 20191 min read
711. Sebastian Faulks - Paris Echo
Brilliant. As the blurb/a reviewer says, partly a hymn to Paris, but also via the alternating and very different narrators, an...
Mar 11, 20191 min read
666. Simon Mawer - Tightrope
Well, close on the title. Very much the successor to 663 (which I think you would have to have read first) but, for me, less compelling....
Mar 7, 20191 min read
665. Simon Mawer - The Girl Who Fell From The Sky
I loved this – book of the year so far. It began with her parachute drop into France in 1942 or 3, and then bounced back into her...
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...
Jun 23, 20181 min read
604. Zadie Smith - White Teeth
This sort of thing has not been done before, and I thought it was brilliant. Too complex a plot to summarise, but a very funny and clever...
Jun 9, 20181 min read
596. Sebastian Faulks - A Fool's Alphabet
This was quite a difficult book; I have read it before, but assume a long time ago. But as it progressed, I enjoyed it more and it is...
Jan 6, 20181 min read
565. William Boyd - Any Human Heart
Still not certain whether I have read this before. The central figure, Logan Mountstewart, sounds very familiar, but I had no memory of...