0234 | The Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
Context: One of four books I finished in a day in bed in Stockton. Not feeling great. REVIEW This is a disturbing book. Of that, there is no doubt. Quite…
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0233 | The Awakening – Kate Chopin
Context: The first book I finished on my new Sony Reader. Read while the snow melted on the new housing estate foundations they’re building over the road. Thi REVIEW This…
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0232 | Pippi Longstocking – Astrid Lindgren
Context: Got this for my niece for Christmas… when, unusually, I got a stocking from the mother-in-law. REVIEW This is one of the few books on the list which a…
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0231 | Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
Context: As I was reading this, it started snowing in the UK… and it went on an on for days. First white Christmas we’ve had for years. REVIEW This is…
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0230 | The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
Context: Finished this off while I was attending the first workshop of the Oral Literature Project at Cambridge University. REVIEW Another tale of woe from Wharton. I can forgive anyone…
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0229 | The Waves – Virginia Woolf
Context: Mrs Arukiyomi made some great flower decorations for her parents’ anniversary while I was reading this. REVIEW Wow wow wow wow. What an amaaaaazing book. It’s in fact the…
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0228 | The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
Context: got back to a passtime that I last did nearly 20 years ago while reading this: sketching. REVIEW In the form of an email to the premier of China,…
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0226 | The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
Context: We got and started opening a chocolate advent calendar while I was finishing this off. REVIEW This is one of the strangest books I’ve read in a long time….
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0225 | Marks of Identity – Juan Goytisolo
Context: Had to break out the hot water bottle on more than one occasion while reading this. It’s getting cold here. REVIEW Now the 1001 Books list has its critics….
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0224 | The Subtle Knife – Philip Pullman
Context: Visited the Christmas Fayre at Bury St Edmunds while reading this. REVIEW This is the second book in Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. I read the first, Northern Lights…
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0222 | Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Context: finished this off while doing weights. Jogging’s on hold as my left hamstring recovers from a slight strain. REVIEW Okonkwo is a man who doesn’t do things by halves….
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0221 | Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
Context: This was my toilet book at Field View. It’s amazing how much you get through on the loo and while brushing your teeth. REVIEW Take a ball, a lovers’…
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0220 | The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
Context: Read this as our landlady’s pumpkin decayed slowly in the garden. REVIEW Hard-hitting crime writing doesn’t come much better written than this. Ellroy takes up where writers like Chandler…
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0219 | The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
Context: finished this off over a bowl of Weetabix at our friends’ house in High Wycombe. REVIEW I was round at a friend’s house this weekend and, in the hallway,…
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0216 | Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
Context: I bought myself a nice reflective yellow top to wear jogging while I listened to this in autumn’s gathering gloom. REVIEW I really like Wharton. This is the third…
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0214 | Candide – Voltaire
Context: Listened to this all the way back from taking my dad 2 hours to Heathrow Airport in driving rain and heavy traffic. REVIEW Way back in the 18th century,…
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0213 | The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
Context: Finished this off on a run through the autumn leaves reminiscent of the red weed. REVIEW As a young teenager I was fascinated by Jeff Wayne’s musical version of…
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0212 | The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
Context: finished off a huge bar of Dairy Milk while reading this. Thought I’d better get some before Cadbury’s stops being British forever… REVIEW This is a definitive novel. There’s…