0514 | The Graduate | Charles Webb
This is even more fun to read than the famous film that is lifted almost entirely from the written dialogue. It’s deceptively short and, as it consists almost entirely of dialogue,…
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0511 | U.S.A. | John Dos Passos
My what a splendid book this is. Vast in its scope and magnanimous in its treatment of the varied strata that made up a nation coming to terms with the…
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0508 | A Visit from the Goon Squad | Jennifer Egan
This was not at all what I expected from the title. In fact, even having finished it, I really have no clue as to why it is called this at…
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0501 | Blood Meridian | Cormac McCarthy
An absolutely harrowing novel that makes you feel like you yourself have spent months tramping around the arid wastelands of what is now the US-Mexican borderland. It’s the kind of…
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0497 | Breakfast at Tiffany’s | Truman Capote
I couldn’t get the film of this little novel out of my mind while reading it. Hepburn brought the character of Holly Golightly to live so vividly that once you’ve…
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0496 | Franny and Zooey | J. D. Salinger
Of course, everyone knows Salinger for Catcher in the Rye, a book I read before this blog began and so never reviewed. That book seemed to be about something. This…
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0495 | Time’s Arrow | Martin Amis
Not read any of Martin Amis’ stuff since I started out with The Information which I rated mediocre 6 years ago. This, was far, far better. Time’s Arrow starts off a very…
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0494 | The Blithedale Romance | Nathaniel Hawthorne
I find Hawthorne tedious at the best of times. This was no exception. So, there’s this utopian get together called Blithedale and it all starts off wonderfully with everyone pulling…
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0493 | Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov
This is a novel which should be approached and dealt with very, very carefully indeed. What Nabokov has done here remains as liable to detonate and rip the world apart…
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0491 | The Good Soldier | Ford Madox Ford
What I enjoyed about this most of all was the narrator and the way he tells the story. As the novel opens, you really have no idea what is coming…
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0489 | Nemesis | Philip Roth
And so back to Philip Roth after a long break of nearly six years and The Plot Against America which I thought was excellent. Nemesis is also, like Plot, set among…
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0487 | Star of the Sea | Joseph O’Connor
This was a very quick read due to O’Connor’s engaging and eclectic writing style and ability to construct some very strong characters and bring them together in creative ways. Star of…
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0485 | Moby Dick | Herman Melville
Moby Dick is one of those books, like War and Peace, that kind of separates the serious reader from the airport novel consumer. It’s not like Proust, which even serious…
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0482 | A Boy’s Own Story | Edmund White
This is an important book but it is not an easy one to read. The front cover of my edition had blurb on it that said it combined J D…
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0481 | The Marriage Plot | Jeffrey Eugenides
You’ll think this is pretty good if you come to it without having first read Middlesex or The Virgin Suicides. You’ll think he’s a witty, clever incisive writer who has…
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0452 | Fear of Flying | Erica Jong
This book took me very much by surprise. There were mixed reviews online but I thought it was a very bold work of genius. When you consider that this was…
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0448 | The History of Love | Nicole Krauss
You know, I’m always disheartened when picking up a book to find a sticker staring back at me declaring that it’s been “Shortlisted by Richard & Judy’s book club.” What…
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0446 | The Enigma of Arrival | V. S. Naipaul
Once I’d settled into this, it was a beautiful read. Naipaul is a Nobel Laureate and so you expect that the prose will be challenging. But while A Bend in…