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…
-
-
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…
-
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…
-
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….
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
0204 | Do You Know What You’re Doing Lord? – Carol Anderson
Context: Finished this off as the wife was cleaning jewellery which had gone mouldy whilst in storage in Papua New Guinea. REVIEW In the missionary-lore of Papua New Guinea, the…
-
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…
-
0202 | Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
Context: Read this at the Ukarumpa SIL base while I was visiting the LCORE building and doing some language database work. REVIEW I never did discover, while reading this, just…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
0183 | Mambu – Kenelm Burridge
Context: Discovered the music of Eric Bibb while reading this one. Love it. REVIEW This is a bit mistitled I feel. Perhaps Kenelm felt that a name like Mambu would…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…