0684 | The Heat of the Day | Elizabeth Bowen
On the inside cover of this, it says, “The texture of her prose has a gossamer exquisiteness…” Well, here’s an example of what passed for gossamer in the age of…
0683 | G. | John Berger
While, on the surface, Berger’s prose seems simple enough, any discerning reader will find it hard not to feel as if there are hidden depths that require more explanation. Much…
0682 | Towards a Philosophy of Photography | Vilem Flusser
If you have to study photography as I currently do, you need to think about it. Flusser aims to provide enough to get us started, and like all philosophies, it’s…
0681 | Crash | J G Ballard
Even as I placed my penis in his rectum Vaughan had known he would try to kill me, in a final display of his casual love for me. Crash, page…
0680 | Family Matters | Rohinton Mistry
Not a patch on A Fine Balance, this starts out alright with a family fighting to survive on the fine margins of lower-middle class Indian life. However, once things settle…
0679 | Song of Solomon | Toni Morrison
Very readable for a Morrison so that’s a bonus for a start, even though it does bear her trademark style. If you’ve not read her before, this is a great…
0678 | The Drowned World | J. G. Ballard
As one of Ballard’s early works, this is pretty readable, esp. if you’ve ever tried the atrocious witterings of the likes of Crash. It’s sci-fi, and the basic premise is…
0677 | The Driver’s Seat | Muriel Spark
Strange little book this one at just over 100 pages. In this very short space of time Spark creates Lise, a very memorable character who I was never quite sure…
0676 | The Moor’s Last Sigh | Salman Rushdie
Started out alright but Rushdie can’t seem to just sit still and be a good boy. No sooner have you got settled then he’s up and off on some mad…
0675 | Freedom | Jonathan Franzen
As with Franzen’s other novels, everyone’s got hangups and skeletons in the closet and he spends the novel dragging these out into the light while the characters kick and scream….
0674 | The House of Doctor Dee | Peter Ackroyd
As with all things Ackroyd, this novel suffers from not only an obsession with London now, but, as if that wasn’t ethnocentric enough, London then. Even though it’s been 8…
0673 | Self-Condemned | Wyndham Lewis
To a certain extent autobiographical, this again, as with The Driver’s Seat, is about someone making their own decisions. This resonated with me as Professor Rene Harding resigns from his…
0672 | The Midnight Examiner | William Kotzwinkle
Kotwinkle is probably more famous for writing E.T., not this, and it’s hard to see why this needs to be read by anyone before they die. This is a shame…
0671 | Platform | Michel Houellebecq
A very strange novel not least because it must be one of the only novels that takes place in the context of the tourism industry. However, lest that conjure up…
0670 | The Violent Bear it Away | Flannery O’Connor
Reads very much like Wharton but with religion as its theme rather than morality. Stark, grim and dark all the way through, a great caution for anyone involved in religion….
0669 | The Engineer of Human Souls | Josef Skvorecky
If Iain Sinclair wants to know how to eradicate plot but nevertheless write a novel that is at once funny, poignant, moving, funny, sad and tragic, he should put down…
0668 | Dining on Stones | Iain Sinclair
You know you’re in for a rough ride when the book you’re about to read is recommended by the lamentable Will Self. When everything else fails, fall back on doctored…
0667 | LaBrava | Elmore Leonard
If you like hard-boiled detective stuff, this is for you. Leonard even throws in a faded 1950s movie star so you get a bit of film noir along the way….