0598 | Everything is Illuminated | Jonathan Safran Foer
This is at once one of the funniest and also one of the most tragic novels I’ve experienced in a long time. Safran Foer’s tale of the history of his…
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0597 | The Forsyte Saga | John Galsworthy
The last book of 2017 is the one and only book of the year that reaches the lofty heights of the 90%+ rating needed to enter Arukiyomi’s Hall of Fame….
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0596 | The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night | Anonymous
Right, first off, if you’re going to read this, you should do it unabridged. Let’s face it, if you don’t, you’ve not read the 1001 nights but 648, or 385,…
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0595 | Silk | Alessandro Baricco
This is a tiny jewel of a novel and, like a jewel, I felt that it deserves to be looked at for longer than it’s size perhaps might initially indicate….
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0594 | Murphy | Samuel Beckett
My, this was a strange one. Having not read any Beckett before, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Being Beckett though, it seems that, even halfway through, it was…
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0593 | Women in Love | D.H. Lawrence
Back when I lived in another world, I listened to The Rainbow, the first of this two volume story of the Brangwens of Nottinghamshire. Rainbow scored 59%. This one has…
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0592 | Cause for Alarm | Eric Ambler
Dear me, this hasn’t aged well at all, and I couldn’t wait to get to the end of this one. According to Wikipedia, Ambler is known for his thrillers. I…
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0591 | Buddenbrooks | Thomas Mann
Now this was a Mann novel I could get into. This masterfully told epic of generations of a German family shows their demise from a close family of business leaders…
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0590 | The Adventures of Augie March | Saul Bellow
Another Bellow, another fellow. This time it’s Augie, a Jewish kid from the ghetto who we follow entirely randomly as he grows and flows out into the world and all…
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0589 | Norwegian Wood | Haruki Murakami
Last summer, just before a week in Sweden, we were staying at some friends. Browsing their bookshelves, I came across a lovely little two-volume boxed edition of Norwegian Wood. Perfect…
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0588 | If on a winter’s night a traveller … | Italo Calvino
I can’t think of many novels that are as memorable as this one for its sheer audacity, its outrageous cheek, and the utter genius with which the writer sets out…
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0587 | The Day of the Triffids | John Wyndham
An even better read than The Midwich Cuckoos, Wyndham’s best-known novel gets off to a great start even if the ending leaves you hoping for a climax which never comes….
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0586 | The Master | Colm Tóibín
It’s been a while since I read this, but the impression it made on me hasn’t left. Tóibín has written a melancholic novel of a man much misunderstood it seems….
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0585 | Ulysses | James Joyce
Notoriously difficult to read, even more notoriously difficult to understand, whatever your opinion about this novel it is not notoriously difficult to appreciate the genius that lies between its covers….
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0584 | Promise at Dawn | Romain Gary
This memoir is basically a eulogy to Gary’s mother. Seeing as I have never really had a mother to speak of, this was an interesting one for me to read…
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0583 | The Radetzky March | Joseph Roth
A book filled with melancholy not only for the characters but the world in which they live, The Radetzky March is a carefully constructed memorial to a lost age. Roth…
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0582 | The Player of Games | Iain M. Banks
While I’ve read a few of Banks’ non-sci-fi novels, none of them are as memorable as The Player of Games. The world that Banks has created here is truly original…
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0581 | He Knew he was Right | Anthony Trollope
Trollope’s story of a marriage and a life destroyed by the jealousy of a husband could have been a vivid portrayal of how delicately married life can be balanced. Instead,…