The Candy House

 by Jennifer Egan

A book looking just a short way into the future and where social media and technology might take us, when a social media guru invents a technology that can retrieve memories and download them, and also upload them to the collective conscience. Scary stuff. It has a huge cast of characters who interlink over time and place. Some of these characters appeared in A visit from the Goon Squad. Keeping track of them all required a fair bit of mental gymnastics. I enjoyed the first two thirds of this book but for me it lost its way toward the end and as such lost me as well 7/10

Review of the Year 2022

 A bit less crime this year-only 5 Maigret's, all enjoyable, and a smattering of others, including The Secret Life of Writers

The Booker list was ok but not a classic. My favourite by far was The trees by Percival Everett, a truly different book. I enjoyed the winning novel, The seven moons but a number of the other novels were pretty ordinary imho.

The year was dominated by a couple of Trollopes from the Palliser series, The Forsyte Saga trilogy-which I thoroughly enjoyed, and to celebrate it's centenary, Ulysses. This book was like climbing a mountain but was in equal measure entertaining and so opaque that it became a slog to get through. 

Pierene continue to produce good books in translation with my favourite this year being Marzahn, mon amour.

Companion Piece

By Ali Smith

A really enjoyable book about modern life told through an encounter with a wacky family and a story within the story about a young female blacksmith who may or may not have made the lock which features in the first part of the story.

All good fun with a serious poke at the inept government currently in power. 8/10

To Let

By John Galsworthy 

The last part of the Forsyte trilogy and its weakest.

The story revolves around Fleur and Jon the daughter of Soames and son of Irene. It verges on melodrama but the writing is such as to walk a narrow line that keeps it real.  As a picture of Britain leaving the victorian age this is a brilliant series with wonderfully drawn characters 8/10

The Politics of Imperial Memory in France, 1850-1900

By Christina B. Carroll

This is an interesting book charting the portrayal of Empire in France from Napoleon 111 to the early 20th century.  I particularly liked the way it differentiated Empire at home to Empire overseas and also the way reaction to the second empire was such a problem for republicans.

Having said this the writing style I found difficult and not very engaging 5/10