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Nov 4, 20171 min read
546. Kate Atkinson - Human Croquet
Tried to read this years ago (in Oslo I think) and couldn’t get on with it. Enjoyed it much more this time; it is quite a difficult book,...
Aug 11, 20171 min read
512. Georgina Harding - The Gun Room
A book that P got from the library and was about to return unread. I thought it was wonderful; about war and its miseries; the central...
Jan 31, 20171 min read
464. G F Newman - The Corrupted Part One
I think this guy is also a TV script-writer, but this was very good. Set in the East End post war, a bunch of working class on the...
Jul 29, 20161 min read
421. Chris Cleave - Everyone Brave Is Forgiven
Another library book via P. I am not reading at all fluently at the moment; this was quite a good book but I didn’t really enjoy it at...
Jul 22, 20161 min read
420. Simon Raven - The Judas Boy
This is number six in the series, and the only other one we have after no.392. So a lot of plot has flowed under the bridge. Fielding...
Feb 21, 20161 min read
379. William Boyd - Sweet Caress
Very readable, but a little similar to other (I think W Boyd) books; the 20th century seen through the developing life of an individual....
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 25, 20151 min read
332. Kate Atkinson - A God In Ruins
What a wonderful title! And a wonderful book, possibly highlight of the year so far. The story of a family, largely a man, spanning the...
Feb 6, 20151 min read
281. Elizabeth Jane Howard - Confusion
Book 3 which takes us from 1942 to the end of the war. Lots of events as the girls grow up and Louise gets married to a dreadful man,...
Jan 31, 20151 min read
279. Elizabeth Jane Howard - The Light Years
Never read this, or any of her books, before. Huge cast of characters, introduced in short ensemble sketches, so very difficult to...
Nov 11, 20141 min read
260. Andrew Rosenheim - The Informant
Not sure what to make of this, or exactly what genre it aspires to. I guess spy thriller. I thought it would compare interestingly with...
Oct 18, 20141 min read
254. James Ellroy - Perfidia
Another birthday present and a huge book at 700 pages. Quite a strange concept – blending real characters, as he often does, with...
Sep 29, 20141 min read
250. Martin Amis - The Zone Of Interest
Haven’t read any Martin Amis for yonks. This is a difficult book set in or around a concentration camp (although there aren’t many...
Aug 7, 20141 min read
232. Lawrence Durrell - Clea
The last of the Alexandria quartet and also the last book on my list for 2014. I enjoyed this enormously; it was dense and difficult but...
Apr 4, 20141 min read
194. Olivia Manning - Friends & Heroes
Volume three of the above. They are now all in Athens, although only briefly as the Germans invade toward the end, and they flee on a...
Apr 1, 20141 min read
193. Olivia Manning - The Spoilt City
Volume two of the above. Rumania rather passively allows itself to be occupied by the Germans because there is no political will there,...
Mar 29, 20141 min read
192. Olivia Manning - The Great Fortune
Not entirely sure whether volume one of 'The Balkan Trilogy' counts as a book, but volume two (no.193 below) certainly re-introduces the...
Feb 7, 20141 min read
182. Sian Busby - A Commonplace Killing
Bought four books in Waterstones with a token Dan gave me for Xmas. I had never heard of this or the author who turns out to be the wife...
Sep 25, 20131 min read
147. Philip Kerr - A Man Without Breath
I have read a trilogy, I think called 'Berlin Noir' before, without really enjoying it. l am not sure that I enjoyed this a lot either-...
Jun 14, 20131 min read
116. R. J. Ellory - The Devil And The River
Great, big book - post Vietnam meets Raymond Chandler (the end is very Chandler-esque - serious wealth and serious corruption). Small...