0426 | The Sense of an Ending | Julian Barnes
This is a book about time and what it does to us. In particular, it’s about how time gives us a different perspective and how, horrifically, it can bring us…
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0426 | That They May Face the Rising Sun | John McGahern
Now I know what many are going to say on finishing this: ‘what the heck was that about? Where was the story? What was the point?’ And I have to…
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0424 | The Secret Agent | Joseph Conrad
Been quite a while since I’ve read any Conrad. In fact, I started this back in about 2006 but never finished it. This time, I listened to it on Librivox…
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0423 | A Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy Toole
I was hoping this was going to be funnier than it was. It’s a satirical look at the USAnian way of life through the eyes of one of the great…
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0422 | Jude the Obscure | Thomas Hardy
My my, Hardy does it again. What an excellent novel, all the more so because of the personal price it cost him. In dealing with the subject of marriage and…
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0421 | Persuasion | Jane Austen
Well, having finished this, I’m persuaded that Austen is one of the most, if not the most, hyped authors of English literature. Yet again, we find a love triangle and,…
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0420 | Growth of the Soil | Knut Hamsun
The 1001 books list does it again and throws something superb my way. This one just crept into Arukiyomi’s Hall of Fame, a brooding saga of a novel with symbolism…
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0419 | The Tenant of Wildfell Hall | Anne Brontë
I usually breathe a sigh of relief when I finish a “classic” like Wildfell Hall. I certainly did after Persuasion which I shall review shortly. But Anne’s classic has a…
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0416 | Novel with Cocaine | M. Ageyev
Very quick read this one and it’s been a while since I dipped my feet in Russian lit. This novel brought it all back to me and would be a…
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0413 | Bring up the Bodies | Hilary Mantel
The second installment in Mantel’s chronicle of the life of Thomas Cromwell is as good, if not better, than the first. This trilogy is turning out to be a classic…
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0412 | Excellent Women | Barbara Pym
Never heard of Barbara Pym, let alone read anything by her. But she turned out to be a sardonically witty writer with a lot to say about life, particularly relationships…
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0410 | The House of the Seven Gables | Nathaniel Hawthorne
Only read The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne before and I enjoyed that. This though, was another story. It started well enough with a Poe-like sense of mystery and doom foretold….
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0408 | Pamela | Samuel Richardson
Start to finish: badly-written, moralising drivel. If this book hadn’t been as influential as it had been, this would probably have received my lowest rating. It did however prove inspirational…
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0407 | The Nice and the Good | Iris Murdoch
I’m not getting on too well with Iris Murdoch. Under the Net went pretty much over my head. The Bell was a good read. And this one falls somewhere in…
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0406 | The Yellow Wallpaper | Charlotte Perkins Gilman
This is by a long way the shortest item you’ll read on the 1001 books list. I’m not really sure why it was included at all in a list of…
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0405 | Saturday | Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan’s books fall into two categories for me: those that start superbly and kind of taper off (Atonement, Enduring Love) and those that start well and end well (Amsterdam,…
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0403 | A Bend in the River | V. S. Naipaul
Context: Visited a certain opera house while reading this. Can’t remember where it was now… 😉 REVIEW Another Naipaul down. Not as good as In a Free State which I…
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0401 | The Mayor of Casterbridge | Thomas Hardy
Context: Finished this off in Argyle Sqaure, Bloomsbury, London while I was in London for my brother-in-law’s wedding. REVIEW Haven’t tackled Hardy for a while. I found the last effort…