0444 | Private Eye Annual 2013 | Ian Hislop (Ed.)
I haven’t bought an annual since… oohh… probably since Beano days back in the early 80s. But having moved to a country where Private Eye is probably banned and would…
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0441 | Season of Migration to the North | Tayeb Salih
This little novel packs a huge punch even today, 50 years after it was published in a Sudan that was in no way ready hammer blow of this magnitude to…
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0440 | Matthew for Everyone | Tom Wright
I was looking for something that would simply take me through the Gospels of the New Testament, something without a fancy cover and a website full of Flash videos and…
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0434 | The Master and Margarita | Mikhail Bulgakov
What a very, very clever book. To appreciate it, you have to be aware of the context in which it was written and for that I’d heartily recommend the excellent…
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0431 | All the Pretty Horses | Cormac McCarthy
This novel is probably the most evocative I think I’ve read out of North America. Hauntingly beautiful, tragic and yet reassuring too, the Texan and Mexican landscape lives and breathes…
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0422 | Jude the Obscure | Thomas Hardy
My my, Hardy does it again. What an excellent novel, all the more so because of the personal price it cost him. In dealing with the subject of marriage and…
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0413 | Bring up the Bodies | Hilary Mantel
The second installment in Mantel’s chronicle of the life of Thomas Cromwell is as good, if not better, than the first. This trilogy is turning out to be a classic…
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0404 | Storm of Steel | Ernst Jünger
Nice to finish off the year as I began it with a book I’m happy to rate as ‘excellent’. This is a remarkable book for so many reasons. Firstly, it’s…
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0401 | The Mayor of Casterbridge | Thomas Hardy
Context: Finished this off in Argyle Sqaure, Bloomsbury, London while I was in London for my brother-in-law’s wedding. REVIEW Haven’t tackled Hardy for a while. I found the last effort…
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0392 | The River Between | Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Context: Was reading this when we climbed Mt Yasur in Vanuatu and watched it belch lava into the night. REVIEW This is a very important book and a pretty good…
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0388 | Wolf Hall | Hilary Mantel
Context: Recorded an album while I was reading this. REVIEW Now here’s a different kind of novel. Kind of. Mantel has refined her style to provide us with an intimate…
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0387 | L’Assommoir | Émile Zola
Context: Started reading this while I was staying in Kokopo, East New Britain for work. REVIEW If you want to know what life’s really like, I’m noticing that the later…
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0379 | New Guinea Diaries 1871-1883 | Nikolai Nikolaevich Mikloucho-Maclay
Context: Got ourselves some Action Packers in preparation for leaving PNG and carting our life back to the UK while I was reading this. REVIEW I’m nothing short of astounded…
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0369 | Oscar and Lucinda | Peter Carey
Context: We visited a beach to the southeast of Kokopo while I was reading this. REVIEW This was a wonderful book from start to finish. Carey writes with great insight…
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0366 | Kristin Lavransdatter | Sigrid Undset
Context: I read this at home and as we have a paddock next door with horses and they feature widely in the novel, decided this would make a good context…
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0361 | The Talented Mr Ripley | Patricia Highsmith
Context: While reading this the 1001 App Facebook page got it’s 100th like. REVIEW Wow! This was some page-turner. Once you’re in there’s no escape, you just can’t wait to…
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0355 | Rites of Passage | William Golding
Context: Saw the most amazing sunset on a language survey in Tsiletsile (aka Bencheng) while reading this. Why was it amazing? Well, this is the view looking East! REVIEW William…
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0354 | The Spy Who Came in From the Cold | John Le Carré
Context: Finished this off as we headed back to the Markham valley in a dugout canoe on our Silisili Survey. REVIEW I’ve read a few of Le Carré’s novels before…