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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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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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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0258 | Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
Context: The blossom was out in force as I worked my way through this one. REVIEW I kind of wish I’d take Palaniuk up on his advice in the opening…
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0257 | Eugene Onegin – Alexander Pushkin
Context: Read this as the sun set over Parker’s Piece in Cambridge as I waited for my wife, sister and her kids to emerge from Parkside swimming pool. REVIEW Not…
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0256 | Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
Context: Finished this off as we were heading back in my sister’s car from another day out over the Easter holidays with her family who came to stay. REVIEW I’d…
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0254 | The Siege of Krishnapur – J. G. Farrell
Context: Read this while we took in a marvellous cream tea in the most idyllic tea garden in Selworthy, Somerset. REVIEW Back in early 1995, I was walking up a…
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0253 | The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Context: Was reading this as we attended a wedding in Somerset. Someone had made a great model of the couple for the cake. REVIEW This is a rare book in…
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0252 | Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Context: Finished off while driving down to Reading to pick up the wife from a friend’s place. REVIEW The 1001 Books list has totally changed the way I read novels….
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0251 | Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Context: Laboured intensively to produce v4 of the 1001 books spreadsheet while reading this. REVIEW I knew nothing about the Biafran conflict in the late 1960s. I know considerably more…
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0250 | Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Context: finished this on my way down to Tesco’s to get myself some shopping. REVIEW Yet another Austen and, as I suspected, they’re starting to take on much of a…
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0249 | The Torrents of Spring – Ivan Turgenev
Context: I read this in near-freezing conditions as our boiler broke down and a useless and very expensive plumber took 10 days to fix it. REVIEW Oh, I’ve got an…
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0246 | A Hero of Our Time – Mikhail Lermontov
Context: This is the first of a few books I’ll be reading from the collection of Russian literature the guy we’re living with has. REVIEW Never heard of Lermontov, Philistine…
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0242 | White Noise – Don DeLillo
Context: listened to this while I took the car to get its MOT. It failed, then, after some new front brake hoses and a tyre, it passed. REVIEW A loooooong…
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0240 | The Romance of the Three Kingdoms – Lo Kuan-chung
Context: While reading this I started wearing reading glasses and… boy!… they really took some getting used to! REVIEW Battles, rivalry, espionage, subterfuge, love, filial honour, tradition, strategies, mysticism, kingdoms,…