0383 | The Children’s Book | A. S. Byatt
Context: Mrs Arukiyomi picked up a ton of great fruit at the market as I was finishing this off. REVIEW Not read any of Byatt’s work before although I have…
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0377 | The Sorrows of Young Werther | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Context: Messed around on one of the world’s great slip’n’slides while I was reading this. REVIEW Heard that this is one of the most accessible Goethe’s and so it made…
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0376 | The Book Thief | Markus Zusak
Context: Borrowed this from the house of a friend at Ukarumpa. REVIEW Heard a lot about this… all of it good… about how tear-jerking it is and its merits as…
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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…
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0350 | Dr Faustus | Thomas Mann
Context: As I was finishing this, a huge box of Christmas goodies was on its way to us from friends in Korea. Thanks guys! REVIEW Another constipation-inducing Thomas Mann digested….
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0340 | The Making of the Atomic Bomb | Richard Rhodes
Context: Just after I finished this off, a 7.3 earthquake with more explosive force than an atomic bomb smashed a pot in our living room from 100 miles away. REVIEW…
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0333 | Manub & Kilibob:Melanesian Models for Brotherhood | Rufus Pech
Context: Involved in final rehearsals for Cinderella while I finished this off. REVIEW After having had one of the strangest experiences of my life attending meetings of a group of…
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0317 | The Magic Mountain | Thomas Mann
Context: Finished this the day the kitten decided to climb the fly netting and get stuck in the roof. REVIEW Boy! That took me months and I’m a pretty voracious…
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0307 | The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
Context: Listened to this while cooking for myself when my wife returned home to attend to her sick father. REVIEW I wasn’t really sure where this book was going when…
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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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0245 | Fateless – Imre Kertész
Context: As I was reading this, our Dell printer ran out of ink and I got some ink to refill them manually. Never done that before. Dead easy. REVIEW This…
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0215 | 11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour – Joseph E. Persico
Context: Finished this off, appropriately, on Remembrance Sunday here in the UK. This morning we’d attended the Remembrance Service at our local church. REVIEW My mate Gareth lent me this…
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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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0206 | Neither Here nor There – Bill Bryson
Context: on the shelf at our friends’ place in Dubai so I thought I’d give it a go. REVIEW Read a lot of Bryson and I have to say that…
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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!…
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0112 | The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
Context: Read this in a day and finished it with the cat next to me in the study at my mum’s place in Portugal. REVIEW Poignant, evocative, thought-provoking and strong….
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0009 | The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
I was lent this by a colleague at work and laboured at it for a few weeks. REVIEW: Boy this was tough. Don’t get me wrong. Despite Hesse’s love for…