0313 | Man and Wife | Tony Parsons
Context: Finished this off in a day while me and the Mrs stayed for what could potentially be the last time with the mum-in-law at the lodge on the Norfolk…
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0311 | The Crying of Lot 49 | Thomas Pynchon
Context: Bought this at a charity shop and walked onto Hartham in Hertford to sit and read it and almost immediately had company in the form of 2 swans and…
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0306 | Jesus for President – Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw
Context: Finished this off on the day when I finished the second draft of my own book for the publishers. REVIEW I’m wondering if this book will somehow define a…
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0304 | Free Air – Sinclair Lewis
Context: Another novel I listened to as I cut grass in our garden. REVIEW Ok… I’ll admit it, I was duped. I thought this was on the 1001 books list…
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0303 | The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Context: Read this on my e-reader while walking to and from work. First book I’ve read on my 5 min commute. REVIEW Wow. What a book! And not just because…
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0300 | The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Context: Started and finished this in the garden as I’ve taken to 30 mins a day pottering around there ridding my body of office toxins. REVIEW The first audio book…
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0296 | One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
Context: This was the first book I finished in our new home in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. REVIEW Long ago, I saw the film of this book and…
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0292 | The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
Context: The liklik haus or outhouse where I began reading this book in Male. REVIEW Read a number of Stevenson’s works (I’ve reviewed Treasure Island and Jekyll & Hyde on…
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0274 | The Day of the Dolphin – Robert Merle
Context: Read this as we took our first flight on the double-decker A380 from Dubai to Seoul. Very nice. REVIEW Never heard of this until, scanning my copy of the…
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0270 | Sula – Toni Morrison
Context: Read this while waiting for the Newcastle CLC church to start at the Life Centre. REVIEW Another offering from Morrison to compare with Beloved and Jazz. To be honest,…
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0258 | Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
Context: The blossom was out in force as I worked my way through this one. REVIEW I kind of wish I’d take Palaniuk up on his advice in the opening…
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0244 | Mountains Beyond Mountains – Tracy Kidder
Context: Started this off at a friend’s house in Studley Green in the rolling Chiltern hills. REVIEW Another book given to me on my last birthday which I thought I…
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0242 | White Noise – Don DeLillo
Context: listened to this while I took the car to get its MOT. It failed, then, after some new front brake hoses and a tyre, it passed. REVIEW A loooooong…
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0236 | The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid
Context: Night fell on my day in bed while I finished this off – the fourth book in a day. Felt much better afterwards. REVIEW Not only has Hamid got…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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0216 | Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
Context: I bought myself a nice reflective yellow top to wear jogging while I listened to this in autumn’s gathering gloom. REVIEW I really like Wharton. This is the third…