0316 | The Last Temptation | Nikos Kazantzakis
Context: Read this while we took the nephews and niece to an adventure farm in County Durham. REVIEW One of the most bizarre books I’ve read for a long time…
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0314 | What a Carve Up! | Jonathan Coe
Context: Read this while we visited some friends who are having a housing estate built where a school used to be over the back fence. REVIEW I haven’t enjoyed a…
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0309 | Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ – Lew Wallace
Context: Finished this off as I waited four hours for my connecting flight to Port Moresby at Nadzab Airport just outside Lae. REVIEW All I could think about was the…
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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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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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0291 | Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
Context: Read this each night as I lay down to sleep under our mosquito net in the village. REVIEW What a beautiful book to have read in a place so…
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0285 | Search for Salvation–John G. Strelan
Context:I read this just days before I came across a cargo cult that it described in the village of Male in Papua New Guinea. REVIEW I would have passed this…
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0276 | The Life & Times of Michael K – J. M. Coetzee
Context: Finished this book off and read most of it under the haus win shelter at Nobnob in Madang, PNG. REVIEW This is a curious little book about a man…
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0271 | Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
Context: Read this as we cleared out our stuff from our lovely flat in Bar Hill. REVIEW Heard a lot about this novel and watched most of the film with…
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0267 | The Eye in the Door – Pat Barker
Context: Read this while we went to Derwentwater in the Lake District camping with some good old friends. REVIEW Picking up where Regeneration leaves off, Barker’s second book of…
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0264 | A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian – Marina Lewycka
Context: England were justifiably knocked out of the World Cup while I was finishing this off. REVIEW Now this I enjoyed. Here’s a book that is perfect for someone…
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0262 | Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
Context: Took this on an 8 mile walk around Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire when we stopped for a pub lunch. REVIEW Everyone’s seen at least one of the Bond…
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0256 | Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
Context: Finished this off as we were heading back in my sister’s car from another day out over the Easter holidays with her family who came to stay. REVIEW I’d…
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0251 | Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Context: Laboured intensively to produce v4 of the 1001 books spreadsheet while reading this. REVIEW I knew nothing about the Biafran conflict in the late 1960s. I know considerably more…
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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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0218 | The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea – Annette B. Weiner
Context: Read this in bed on a rainy, rainy autumn day in Bar Hill. REVIEW The Trobriand Islands are a small archipelago just north east of the mainland coast of…
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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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0211 | Another World – Pat Barker
Context: Started reading this as we browsed charity shops in Cambridge. By the next day I’d finished it and had some more books to add to my groaning shelves. REVIEW…