0188 | The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
Context: Borrowed a guitar while I was reading this as mine’s in PNG. REVIEW Švejk is one of literatures great great characters. If English did not so dominate the world…
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0187 | The Quiet American – Graham Greene
Context: Listened to this as we moved from High Wycombe to Cambridge and settled in in Bar Hill. REVIEW Not one of Greene’s best and one of his later works….
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0186 | Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
Context: A reclining chair, a lamp and a cushion on a cloudy Saturday morning. REVIEW I’ve read a couple of other McEwan’s which always captivated me until about halfway through….
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0185 | Thank You, Jeeves – P.G.Wodehouse
Context: On the bookshelf along with this were several other first edition Wodehouse hardbacks, some with very good dustjackets from the 1930s. Lovely. REVIEW I couldn’t help thinking of Huxley’s…
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0180 | The Information | Martin Amis
Context: Finished this off just after a shopping trip to Tesco’s where I got two free blocks of cheese (always complain politely!) REVIEW Recently, I read The Old Devils by…
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0179 | Embers – Sándor Márai
Context: First fiction I’ve borrowed from a British library in well over a decade. Got this one the day I joined Bar Hill library. REVIEW This is the story of…
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0178 | The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Context: We listened to this in the car over weeks and weeks. Less than twenty minutes after we finished, the car’s engine died and had to be scrapped. REVIEW Murakami…
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0177 | The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
Context: Listened to this from librivox.org as we moved from Piddington back to Bar Hill. REVIEW Get a good look at that cover because that’s as scary as this ‘tale…
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0174 | Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
Context: Started to learn to play the piano at some point in the months I spent reading this. REVIEW Many of you know that I’m pretty fixated with the 1001…
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0172 | The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
Context: We spilled pesto on the bed just as I was finishing this off after dinner – mad rushing of covers to the bathroom but all is fine now. REVIEW…
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0170 | Erewhon – Samuel Butler
Context: While listening to this in the Wycliffe kitchens, I was informed that, due to Health & Safety regulations, I was no longer allowed to listen to audio books while…
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0169 | Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Context: Took this along as Mrs Arukiyomi and I walked up the hill at West Wycombe and took in this view of High Wycombe from our favourite bench up there….
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0165 | An Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
Context: while I was reading this, our clothes dryer died in the garden and we had to string up an emergency washing line REVIEW A friend bought me this for…
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0163 | Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Context: Listened to this courtesy of librivox.org while walking to and from work through the bluebells in Dell’s Wood. REVIEW Long ago, when my mother-in-law and her sister asked me…
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0161 | A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
Context: Very brief listen to this courtesy of librivox.org while working in the Wycliffe kitchens. REVIEW I was expecting something of a banal treatise on something mundane or other but,…
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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…