Coventry

 by Rachel Cusk

A series of essays and book reviews that were at times brilliant and always well written. I particularly liked the opening essay on driving in rural areas and the one on Assisi and St. Francis. Some great insights that I recognise but could never of crystallised into coherent sentences in a hundred years. 

I was less enamoured with her reflections on relationships where all the essays seemed to be flavoured with healthy doses of angst, catholic guilt and the belief that no matter what the circumstances of peoples lives -they must be wrong and cannot possibly be getting the best from their lives. 6/10

Quantum Legacies

 by David Kaiser

A very interesting book on the development of physics over the past century and how much discovery has been made as a result of defence funding. The perils of getting funding to keep research going our well laid out. The physics is well explained although I did get lost in places - this stuff is mind boggling! 7/10

Death at Intervals

 by Jose Saramago

This was a very strange, funny and thought provoking book. It's starting point is death being cancelled one new years eve in a small country somewhere.

The rest of the book explores how people react to this and again how they react when death decides to give people one week's notice of death when she reintroduces death again. I got mixed up at the end when we have death herself having to deal with a returned letter! 8/10

The Return of the Native

 by Thomas Hardy

A typical assortment of Hardy characters in Yeobright, Wildeve, Eustacia and Diggory Venn but one of the biggest characters is Egdon Heath where the story is set. Having visited the area this year the book captures the bits of scrubland near the coast beyond Weymouth and Lulworth cove brilliantly. The story is typically tragic and a bit drawn out but his language and detail is fantastic 8/10

Maigret in New York

 by Georges Simenon

Maigret gets dragged to New York by a worried son and where he uncovers a blackmail plot and a sordid murder from long ago. Not the best as I prefer Maigret on French soil but still intriguing 6/10