0433 | Nostromo | Joseph Conrad
Supposedly Conrad’s most complex novel, I will admit only that it is his most boring. I seem to have a jinx when it comes to not only reading Latin American…
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0429 | A Pale View of Hills | Kazuo Ishiguro
Ishiguro has written some of the best books I’ve read. This is not one of them. Granted, it’s his first published novel so this is understandable. But this one simply…
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0421 | Persuasion | Jane Austen
Well, having finished this, I’m persuaded that Austen is one of the most, if not the most, hyped authors of English literature. Yet again, we find a love triangle and,…
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0414 | A Season in Mecca: Narrative of a Pilgrimage | Abdellah Hammoudi
Right, I think it’s time to share the news with the faithful few who follow this blog: I’m off to Saudi Arabia in a few weeks to work teaching English…
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0409 | Behind the Beautiful Forevers | Katherine Boo
Saw this reviewed in The Guardian and as it reminded me of Lapierre’s City of Joy kind of mixed in with A Fine Balance, I thought I couldn’t go wrong…
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0407 | The Nice and the Good | Iris Murdoch
I’m not getting on too well with Iris Murdoch. Under the Net went pretty much over my head. The Bell was a good read. And this one falls somewhere in…
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0403 | A Bend in the River | V. S. Naipaul
Context: Visited a certain opera house while reading this. Can’t remember where it was now… 😉 REVIEW Another Naipaul down. Not as good as In a Free State which I…
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0397 | Confessions | Jean Jacques Rousseau
Context: Listened to this while we were travelling between Brisbane and Sydney. REVIEW It was radical at the time. It isn’t now. Now we can hardly stop public figures from…
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0395 | A Home at the End of the World | Michael Cunningham
Context: The second book I finished while we were staying in Port Vila, Vanuatu REVIEW Not read any Cunningham since The Hours waaaay back at review #0057 in September 2007….
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0389 | Shirley | Charlotte Brontë
Context: Was reading this when we took a final walk up the hills around Ukarumpa before leaving PNG. REVIEW This completed my reading of the canon of Charlotte Brontë’s completed …
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0385 | Couples: The Truth | Kate Figes
Context: While I was reading this, Mrs Arukiyomi made her first pot in quite a while. REVIEW Figes has obviously spent a lot of time researching this lengthy book about…
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0372 | Gargantua & Pantagruel | François Rabelais
Context: Ironically, I started reading this just before we moved house, and I finished reading it just as we discovered we had to move out of the house we subsequently…
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0365 | Kidnapped | Robert Louis Stevenson
Context: Listened to the librivox.org recording of this while I washed up over many nights. REVIEW Another rollicking adventure from the pen of RLS. I’ll be kind of glad not…
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0363 | Rasselas: Prince of Abyssinia | Samuel Johnson
Context: Got another pineapple out of the garden while I was reading this. Lovely! REVIEW Now here’s a wee tale that reads like a novelist’s version of the Biblical book…
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0359 | Elizabeth Costello | J. M. Coetzee
Context: Finished this as Mrs Arukiyomi was hosting one of her popular cafes one Saturday. REVIEW This was a really strange novel. You can’t win the Nobel Prize without being…
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0356 | The Rainbow | D.H. Lawrence
Context: Listened to this as we used various dugout canoes to travel down the lower reaches of the Watut River in PNG on a language survey. REVIEW As I listened…
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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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0336 | A General Theory of Love | Lewis, Amini & Lannon
Context: Our jacaranda tree was in full bloom as I finished this one off. REVIEW This is the third book on the psychology of love which I picked up when…