0280 | Kim – Rudyard Kipling
Context: Finished this off in the midst of packing for five weeks living in a village in Papua New Guinea. REVIEW This took a lot of getting through. Thankfully I’d…
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0279 | The Return of the Native –Thomas Hardy
Context: Listened to this over weeks while travelling through Korea, Japan and Australia to emigrate to Papua New Guinea. REVIEW Some Hardy I like. Others I do not. This fell…
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0278 | A Dry White Season – Andre Brink
Context: Finished this the weekend we started cooking our own food in shelters we’d built ourselves called haus kuks. REVIEW Seems to be a season of South Africa! Following…
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0276 | The Life & Times of Michael K – J. M. Coetzee
Context: Finished this book off and read most of it under the haus win shelter at Nobnob in Madang, PNG. REVIEW This is a curious little book about a man…
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0275 | A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
Context: Finished this off on Trinity Beach just north of Cairns which is mentioned often in this novel. REVIEW A very, very long time ago, I was a teenage boy….
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0274 | The Day of the Dolphin – Robert Merle
Context: Read this as we took our first flight on the double-decker A380 from Dubai to Seoul. Very nice. REVIEW Never heard of this until, scanning my copy of the…
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0273 | On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan
Context: Read this while we were meeting the church staff for lunch at our immense church in Seoul, South Korea. REVIEW This is the most amazing book. It’s the fourth…
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0272 | The Inheritance of Loss – Kiran Desai
Context: Packing our final bags for emigrating to Papua New Guinea REVIEW This is a moving portrayal of life in India shortly after the reign of Indira Ghandi when, in…
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0270 | Sula – Toni Morrison
Context: Read this while waiting for the Newcastle CLC church to start at the Life Centre. REVIEW Another offering from Morrison to compare with Beloved and Jazz. To be honest,…
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0268 | The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
Context: Weeded my mate’s allotment while reading this. REVIEW The final part of the Regeneration trilogy picks up with Billy Prior getting cleared to return to the front in France…
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0267 | The Eye in the Door – Pat Barker
Context: Read this while we went to Derwentwater in the Lake District camping with some good old friends. REVIEW Picking up where Regeneration leaves off, Barker’s second book of…
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0265 | Regeneration – Pat Barker
Context: Read this while we visited our friends’ lovely house in Newcastle. REVIEW I’ve had this on my shelf for a very long time and imminent emigration to Papua New…
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0264 | A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian – Marina Lewycka
Context: England were justifiably knocked out of the World Cup while I was finishing this off. REVIEW Now this I enjoyed. Here’s a book that is perfect for someone…
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0263 | The Amber Spyglass – Philip Pullman
Context: While I read this, I was provided with an opportunity to strip the varnish and refinish an oak table in our living room. I thought it looked pretty good….
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0262 | Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
Context: Took this on an 8 mile walk around Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire when we stopped for a pub lunch. REVIEW Everyone’s seen at least one of the Bond…
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0261 | The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
Context: Finished this in the midst of scanning hundreds of photos wihle whittling stuff down to store for the next period of emigration. REVIEW For once, a book by…
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0260 | Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
Context: Finished this off as I flew from Cleveland, Ohio to Dallas, Texas for some training for work. REVIEW Right from the start, I knew that this was an unusual…
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0259 | Bel Ami – Guy de Maupassant
Context: Finished this off as we visited some friends in Cleveland, Ohio. REVIEW This book spirals downwards in a debilitating circle of debauchery as George Duroy aims to satsify his…