This nights foul work

by Fred Vargas
A french detective novel which is fairly wacky and reminds one of "The Incredible Journey" at one point. However, I like my crime novels off the wall and you will need to suspend your disbelief no more than you would for Agatha Christie or most other crime novels. The serious crime unit under Adamsberg is an interesting place there is no doubt. 8/10

L'Argent

by Emile Zola
A very timely read of this the 18th novel in the Rougon Macquart series. It deals with the rise and fall of a bank toward the end of second empire France. It has many parallels with the current financial crisis and is perhaps a warning not to over react too much. These things are cyclical after all even if the scope widens to a global level.
Some of the book gets bogged down in technical stock dealing and the English reader suffers from there only being one translation in existence. Now would be a good time for a new full translation! Not one of Zola's greatest by any means but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would from some of the comments I had read earlier. 7/10
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The White Tiger

by Aravinda Adiga
The story of a an Indian growing up in India in a time of huge change(ie Now!). It is a very readable tale touching on the caste system, corruption, murder, the new economy and the emergence of India-all in an engaging style. The main character remained somebody I felt distant from and could not take to, but I am not sure we are meant to like him. He is a killer and a corrupt businessman after all! 8/10

A Fraction of the Whole

by Steve Toltz
This is a long meandering book which in many ways is full of drivel and in others is very amusing. It reminds me in some ways of Peter Carey's, Illywhacker but maybe that is just the Australian connection kicking in. At over 800 pages I could have done with it being a little shorter but I skipped along through it just to find out what happened next. I would not read it again. 6/10

The Clothes on their Backs

by Linda Grant
As someone who grew up in the 70's I enjoyed some of the nostalgia in this book but I never really connected with the story or the characters and was left disappointed come the end. 6/10

Rancid Pansies

by James Hamilton-Paterson

The third novel featuring Gerald Samper, a snobbish writer living in Italy(mostly). While not as laugh out loud funny as Fernet Branca this is still very amusing in places and a great critique of the Princess Diana myth as only Samper could do it. 6/10

La Bete Humaine

by Emile Zola

The seventeenth novel in the Rougon Macquart and one of the best. After the dream this is straight back in to the darker side of the human existence and a roller coaster murder yarn set on the railway line between Le Havre and Paris. It is Zola at his best painting wonderful descriptions of the landscape and a plot that runs along with the railway it depicts. 9/10

Have Mercy on Us All

by Fred Vargas
The second novel I have read by this author. It is published by Vintage in the UK and had some bad editing mistakes but apart from that annoyance was a good read. The main character is likeable and suitably flawed as a human being to make him attractive.
The premise behind the story requires some suspension of reality but is none the less absorbing for that. 7/10

Five Photos of my wife

by Agnes Desarthe
A gentle and at times amusing, at times sad tale of a man's search for a memory of his wife. I really enjoyed this book 9/10

The Dream (Le Reve)

by Emile Zola
This was hard work and far from being the most enjoyable book I have read of Zola's.
The main character Angelique is the Rougon-Macquart connection. She was abandoned as a child and the story starts with her turning up in a church porch from where she is taken in by some church embroiderers. She is annoying and I couldn't wait for some Zolaesque tragedy to take her away. Sadly it did not.
I will need to read around this to try and redeem the book but it definitely his worst to date- in my humble opinion! 4/10

The Three Evangelists

by Fred Vargas
Very enjoyable crime thriller. An easy read and great to relax with. 8/10

Testimony

by Nicolas Sarkozy
Fascinating stuff. The man intrigues me with his certainty about life and his beliefs. His piece on his wife and their eternal bond which has subsequently evaporated is illuminating. His utopian vision for France is straight from one of his beloved America's movies. Having said this I like this man and some of his open discussion of chaging France is refreshing.
Gets a bit bogged down in places but worth reading soon before it gets consigned to the political tract bin. 8/10

The Gathering

by Anne Enright
I had mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed the writing very much and there were some extremely moving and disturbing passages as well as some darkly humorous ones. However, I felt the story line was a bit thin and the ending unsatisfactory. It was almost as though having revealed to the reader the central issue of the story the rest of the book lost its way. Would still recommend it though. 7/10

Ninety three

by Victor Hugo
Set in 1793 this book was about the Vendean war at the time of the French revolution. The second half of the book was good and had some great insights into the terrors and hardships of civil war and also some detail on how enlightened some of the revolutionary thinking was. However the first half of the book was hard going and pretty dull. 4/10

Dawn, Dusk or Night

by Yasmina Reza
Subtitled 'a year with Nicolas Sarkozy' this is a book of reflections and observations of the French president during the manic year leading up to his election in May 2007.
I found the style of this book difficult to get my head around and yet I could not put it down. It is mesmerising and offers this love him hate him view that resonates with my own reactions to Sarkozy. So many of the observations are fleeting glances when I would have liked to stay longer, but maybe this is the nature of the man where clearly what you see is only what he wants you to see. The book mercifully steers clear of any comment on his private life and gets an extra point from me for that alone. 9/10

Rounding the Mark

by Andrea Camilleri

Another Inspector Montalbano crime mystery set in Sicily. This is very easy reading but great fun although easier than some to unravel fairly early on. 6/10

La Terre (The Earth)

by Emile Zola
The fifteenth novel in the Rougon Macquart series and I think one of the best.
It is shocking even today and exposes some of the more base and brutal sides of mankind, where Jean Macquart as a outsider throughout observes the futile battle of the peasants with the soil and themselves. Some of the scenes are brilliantly written such as when Lise is giving birth at the same time and i the same location as their household cow is giving birth to twin calves. There is even humour with Jesus Christ's(a character not a deity) farting exploits. Definitely a must read if you want to sample Zola. 9/10

Notes from Exile

by Emile Zola
This book is edited and translated by Dorothy Speirs
I guess this book is a little niche but I loved it. It is very short and contains notes that Zola made when forced into exile in England during the Dreyfuss affair.
What is more it includes photos taken during that time by Zola himself. Then there is even more with an introduction that gives us some background on the Vizetelly family who were responsible for some of the early Zola translations. For his pains one of them received a prison sentence for publishing porn. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. 10/10

The Power of Flies

by Lydie Salvayre
Originally published in French these are the musings of a madman (or is he?) who has murdered someone and addresses himself to the judge, the warder and his psychiatrist. You do find out who he has murdered but not until the very end and there are several potential candidates along the way. We only ever hear the voice of the accused and as such he provokes our sympathy but it left me wanting to write somebody elses point of view. What did the judge think or his wife or his father. A good thought provoking book. 8/10

The Courtesans

by Joanna Richardson

Brief biographies of a number of different courtesans from the French second empire days. It was fascinating reading and an insight to French society of that time. I found the style a nnoying at times and felt that the author was always trying to restrain from passing judgement on these women. 5/10

The Discovery of France

by Graham Robb
This is a fascinating book. It is full of interesting info on shepherds on stilts, people with deliberately contorted heads, hobbitt like folk etc. They all lived in a seemingly hidden France unrecognisable from our perceived view which I guess is typically the court of Versailles and bloody revolutions on the streets. I loved it even though he does bang on about map making and cyclists more than I cared for. 9/10

The little girl and the cigarette

by Benoit Duteurtre
A short satire sending up some of the lunacy in our current society's thinking. As with all good satire it is just inches between reality and the absurd. Being French it ends with a suitably dark twist. Excellent 9/10

David Copperfield

by Charles Dickens
As ever with Dickens a great cast of wonderful characters from the glorious Betsy Trotwood to the outrageous Mr Micawber. The only parts I found tedious were the Dora passages. The rest is a great read with some very comic writing indeed. 9/10