0160 | The Road – Cormac McCarthy
Context: Listened to this in a day while preparing food in the Wycliffe kitchens. REVIEW This surprised me. Wasn’t what I thought. I thought it’d be some esoterical account of…
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0159 | Decline & Fall – Evelyn Waugh
Context: Listened to this in a day while chopping copious amounts of veg in the Wycliffe kitchens. REVIEW Having read Vile Bodies, I was expecting something a bit more banal…
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0158 | The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
Context: Read this while visiting our friends who live next to this old rail bridge on the Tyne river, Northumberland. REVIEW If you like One Hundred Years of Solitude, you’re…
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0157 | The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Context: Finished this off as we packed up to head away for a holiday over Easter weekend. REVIEW Steinbeck establishes himself, in my mind, as the USAnian Orwell with this…
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0156 | Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
Context: Daffodils abound in the spring sunlight while I read this mostly on walks to and from work. REVIEW The wife read this before me. That doesn’t often happen and…
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0155 | The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
REVIEW Who names their child Kingsley? I mean, honestly, who does? It sounds like the name you’d give a Basset Hound. Anyway, name apart, this was a terrible novel. It…
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0154 | The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
Context: more audio while working in the kitchens at Horsleys Green. REVIEW Immediately after finishing the Big Sleep, I went straight on to listen to this. I was disappointed in…
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0153 | The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
Context: Listened to this in a day or two while working in the Wycliffe kitchen. REVIEW The film is an absolute classic. In fact the book made me want to…
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0152 | The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Context: Listened to this while working in the kitchens of Wycliffe UK – cutting onions mostly. REVIEW It’s quite a simple plot really. Each brother represents a different element of…
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0151 | Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
Context: finished this off in our room in Piddington with a view out over the garden. REVIEW I liked this. It kept me wanting to read more and I was…
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0150 | An Evil Cradling – Brian Keenan
Context: My bedtime book in our wonderful bed at Piddington. REVIEW I was at a friend’s house and spied this on the shelf. “One of the best books that I’ve…
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0149 | Becoming Sinners – Joel Robbins
Context: Read this as part of my preparation for language survey in PNG this summer. REVIEW Robbins has written a fascinating insight into the cultural mindset of the Urapmin people…
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0148 | Hard Times – Charles Dickens
Context: Read this mostly on my way to and from work along this farmer’s track. REVIEW This is a shorter novel than most Dickens I’ve read but it still contained…
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0147 | The Sea – John Banville
Context: My dad gave me this for Christmas so it was appropriate I finish it off at his place where, over the road, they’ve laid out the foundations of the…
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0146 | Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
Context: listened to this while I worked in the kitchens at Wycliffe. REVIEW This is a loooong book and I listened to it over about three weeks on my mp3…
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0145 | Dreams from My Father – Barack Obama
Context: Read this when we moved into a lovely house in Piddington. REVIEW My aunt-in-law packaged this one up for me for Christmas thinking I’d like to read it. She…
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0144 | Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
Context: Moving house again, this time to a room in a lovely house in Piddington. REVIEW Never read any du Maurier so wasn’t sure what to expect from this. I…
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0143 | Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
Context: Snow outside, great fire, comfy sofa, cosy pub, pint of Bulmers -wonderful. Shame the book was pants. REVIEW As with Heart of Darkness, I found this a labour to…