0125 | Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
Context: Finished this off in an afternoon in my room at the Wycliffe centre. REVIEW Wow. Little books (127 pages in my edition from the 50s) can certainly pack some…
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0124 | The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
Context: Finished off this on my bed at the Wycliffe centre. REVIEW An amazing book that, for a first novel, is a great feat of literature. There’s so much going…
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0123 | Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
Context: Finished this off in bed at the in-laws’ REVIEW Never read any Balzac but certainly will do again. This is a lovely period piece that gives you a great…
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0122 | American Pastoral – Philip Roth
Context: Finished this off on my bed as a migraine kicked in. REVIEW It’s going to be a while before I read another “classic American novel.” One of the few…
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0121 | A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
Context: Read this as I hitch-hiked into and back from Cambridge. REVIEW This is a novel that many people have had spoiled as it is, or at least used to…
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0120 | Indigo – Marina Warner
If you’re here looking for v4 of the spreadsheet then you’re following a bad link I accidentally posted on the web. The new version of the spreadsheet is HERE If…
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0119 | Villette – Charlotte Bronte
Context: Finished off in the garden while housesitting for some friends. REVIEW Forget Jane Eyre. Yes, I said forget her. There is such a huge chasm of difference between these…
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0118 | Northern Lights – Philip Pullman
Context: Finished this off on my in-laws’ decking in the garden. REVIEW For a long time I’ve been wanting to get my hands on the first book in His Dark…
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0117 | Oblomov – Ivan Goncharov
Context: started this on a walk in the country in Portugal with my family. REVIEW Never heard of this and would never have done if it wasn’t for the 1001…
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0116 | Hind’s Feet on High Places – Hannah Hurnard
Context: Read this a chapter as a time as part of my daily devotional and finished it on the plane back from Portugal to the UK. REVIEW This is one…
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0115 | The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
Context: Finished this in the taxi from my mum’s in Portugal to the railway station. REVIEW It’s quite something to write a novel in a language foreign to your own….
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0114 | The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
Context: Finished this off in my mum’s jacuzzi. REVIEW Now that Middlesex has been removed from the 2008 edition of the 1001 list, Eugenides’ work is represented by this one…
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0113 | Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
Context: Read most of this in the forest at the end of my mum’s garden in Portugal. REVIEW Sometimes I read a book, get to the end and wonder why…
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0112 | The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
Context: Read this in a day and finished it with the cat next to me in the study at my mum’s place in Portugal. REVIEW Poignant, evocative, thought-provoking and strong….
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0111 | Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
Context: Finished off in the garden of my mum’s house in Portugal. REVIEW I’d read a bit of Ackroyd’s non-fiction as well before this and know that while he can…
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0110 | Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Context: Started this in the UK and finished it off on the lawn at my mum’s in Portugal. REVIEW I know this book has had a lot of praise and…
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0109 | Strait is the Gate – Andre Gide
Context: Finished this in a day on my bed at my mum’s place in Portugal. REVIEW This started off as an unassuming romance novella but, before long, I realised that…
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0108 | Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte
Context: Finished this off in bed at my in-laws’ place near Cambridge, UK. REVIEW Nothing much to report here. This was an entirely predictable Bronte piece which, unlike her sisters,…