0211 | Another World – Pat Barker
Context: Started reading this as we browsed charity shops in Cambridge. By the next day I’d finished it and had some more books to add to my groaning shelves. REVIEW…
-
-
0209 | Fathers & Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Context: finished this off on a 2 mile run with a lovely sunset and autumn breeze in my face. REVIEW I’ve not read a Russian novel that has disappointed me….
-
0208 | What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
Context: Did my first ever work on a car engine while reading this. I replaced the rocker gasket. Now I feel like a real man! REVIEW Now, I’ve read a…
-
0205 | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig
Context: Finished this off at our friends’ place in the Arabian Ranches, Dubai. REVIEW Heard, as many of you will have, about this book for years and never met anyone…
-
0203 | The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Context: Read this while we visited the SIL base at Ukarumpa in PNG and stayed in this house. REVIEW Edith’s own unhappy marriage and explorations of marital crises in Ethan…
-
0201 | A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
Context: Read this as we visited the orientation course base at Nobnob, just outside Madang in Papua New Guinea. REVIEW Long, long ago, when I didn’t read novels but thought…
-
0200 | The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
Context: Read this on Holloways Beach, just north of Cairns as we settled into the sand for a day. REVIEW A true war story is never moral. It does not…
-
0199 | Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
Context: Was reading this by the side of the pool at our host’s place when we couchsurfed Cairns. REVIEW What name beginning with W could possibly be so bad that…
-
0198 | The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
Context: Finished this off the day we went into Perth taking our friends’ bikes to cycle around King’s Park and the Swan River. REVIEW Never read any Oscar Wilde but,…
-
0197 | To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
Context: finished this on our AirAsiaX flight from Stansted to Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian food was lovely. REVIEW This is not a well-known Hemingway as far as I’m aware. Nevertheless, it’s…
-
0195 | The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
Context: Broke the back of this one whilst outside in the garden reading on some deceptively comfortable garden furniture. REVIEW Philip Roth’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel American Pastoral didn’t really do…
-
0194 | Silas Marner – George Eliot
Context: Listened to this walking around Cambridge trying to find a decent pair of sandals for our trip to Papua New Guinea. REVIEW Only read Middlemarch before by Eliot although…
-
0193 | The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
Context: Finished this off in a brand new armchair at my mate’s house. Gorgeous chair from Marks & Spencers. Perfect for reading in. REVIEW Fifty pages into this, I was…
-
0192 | August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
Context: Read this while I waited for Barry to come and cut the church hedge with me. Incidentally, this is where I married Mrs Arukiyomi nearly 15 years ago. REVIEW…
-
0190 | Smiley’s People – John le Carré
Context: Got my first cold in a year and a half just as I finished this off. I should have been reading The Spy Who Came in from the Cold!…
-
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…
-
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….
-
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….