by George Simenon
One of the best Maigret novels as this is Maigret writing about Simenon and filling in some of the gaps and correcting some of his minor errors, It is very funny in places but also quite poignant in others when he talks about real issues of society seen on a daily basis by the police. 10/10
by Nolwenn le Blevennec
A french book about an affair. The affair started three years before the time of the book and lasted three months but then spent three years coming to an end and we get taken through it on a self absorbed retelling of the time by the narrator.
The saving grace of the book is that it is very funny in places and made me laugh out loud. Otherwise too introspective for me. 6/10
by Zadie Smith
I think this is Zadie Smith's first historical novel but it is a lot of fun. It is based around real people and events, but the main characters have been largely forgotten by history. Characters such as Dickens and Maclise also make an appearance, and we don't always see their best sides!
The story follows Mrs Touchet and her cousin Ainsworth through their colourful lives and their interaction with a celebrated legal case over the identity of Roger Tichborne and whether the claimant of an inheritance is actually him. Great larks! The story moves from London to Jamaica to Australia and my only disappointment is that the story ran out of steam about two thirds of the way through. The earlier parts of the book I really enjoyed 7/10
by Yanis Varoufakis
A book examining the rise of the big tech companies. The argument is that the rise of cloud capital has brought about the death of capitalism as we know it and that power now lies with a few cloudalists for whom most of us work for free.
YV loves to come up with new terms-indeed, one chapter of this book is devoted to explaining why the term used in the title is important- and we have many in this book including cloud proles and cloud serfs.
I found the argument difficult to follow at times but this is a very thought provoking book that will leave me wondering about the way this will move. The most sobering part of the book was his chapter looking at China and the USA and the new cold war. The most disappointing was the last chapter which paints a utopia that we are unlikely to ever reach and left to many questions unanswered 6/10
by Paul Lynch
A dystopian vision set in present day Ireland but could be anywhere in the western world. The country descends to civil war as a far right party takes over the country and bit by bit clamps down on dissent. A depressing but captivating read as a mother tries to keep her family together after the husband is arrested.
Some of the characters were a bit unbelievable but still powerful storytelling 7/10
by Pierre LeMaitre
The first in a planned trilogy of the post war years but there is a surprise appearance of characters from the previous trilogy of the interwar years!
This story revolves around the Pelletier family. The father runs a very successful soap company in Lebanon but his four children are still finding their way in life with mixed results. This is the tale of how it unfolds, which takes us from Lebanon to Saigon to Paris and in true LeMaitre style is peppered with surprises along the way. A bit gruesome in parts, along with a smattering of humour this is great storytelling 9/10
by Paul Murray
The longest book on this years list it is set in a small town in Ireland a couple of hours from Dublin.
It tells the stories of the four members of the Barnes's family as the family faces up to various challenges such as bankruptcy, mid life crisis, marriage breakdown, male rape, bullying, transition to college life, climate change etc etc. It is very funny in places and exceedingly dark in others and I felt it ran out of steam by the end with an ending that left you guessing. I enjoyed the structure as the four members took it in turns to be central stage and tell their story. Not sure why the mother had to do this without punctuation but no doubt it made sense to some! 6/10
by Deborah Levy
This book was written as a response to George Orwell's essay called why I write. In that he identifies four things he believes motivate writers to write.
Levy's response as a woman living in the twenty first century is both thought provoking and interesting. I loved it and it was beautifully produced by Notting Hill Editions 9/10
by Georges Simenon
A new twist, with Mme Maigret being given a central role in this mystery of what turns out to be a double murder and in which Mme Maigret's conversations on a park bench turn out to be the key to solving the crime. 8/10
by Paul Johnson
A 2023 take on the British economy, looking at where the money comes from and how it is distributed. Along the way he comments on the good and the bad of the British tax system and the failings and strengths of the various spending departments.
You may not agree with all of his analysis but it does offer food for thought. It is fairly well balanced in its swipes at politicians from all sides but it is written by somebody who rising from modest roots, has embraced the establishment of which he is now a part. As such he comes across as a bit arrogant in places but I still found it an enjoyable and stimulating read 8/10
by Elaine Feeney
You get the impression as you read this that Elaine Feeney may well have built a boat at some time in her past.
This book is about a lot of things other than boat building though. It is about grief, growing up on the spectrum, single parenthood, relationship breakdown, abuse and misogyny in the catholic church and more. In fact, although I enjoyed this book its weakness is that it tries to deal with too much and feels missing something as a result. Definitely an author I would read again though 6/10
by Paul Harding
A small island community made up of black and mixed race poor is forcibly evicted from their homes in a story, based on fact, about our inability to tolerate difference. It is a sombre tale, told brilliantly with a poetry to the language that makes the darkness of the story even more painful. It took me a while to get into it but I ended up racing through the second half 8/10
by Viktoria Lloyd Barlow
This is, I suppose, a story of three women set in a rural town not far from Lancaster. Dolly is sixteen and growing up fast. She lives with her divorced mother. There summer is disturbed when new neighbours move in next door. They are from London and looking to do some property deals in the area. Dolly becomes thick with Vita and starts spending more and more time with them. So far so normal but thrown into this mix is the fact Vita has always wanted a daughter and Dolly's mother, Sunday, is on the aspergers spectrum. The tale is told slowly and keeps and element of gentle tension throughout.
The book focuses a lot on pronunciation and hearing it read on an audiobook worked really well. It is spliced with humour but I felt it was too long in the end with repetition that was unnecessary. An interesting ending though 6/10
by Ayobami Adebayo
A story set in Nigeria detailing how the lives of two families from different parts of society are altered by external events. The stories overlap in a deadly way and from the moment the title of the book is explained it is clear the story can only end badly which is does for all concerned. Both sad and moving it is not a book I would read again. There was no redemption here, no hope. Must be in with a chance of winning! 5/10
by Sebastian Barry
Set in 1990's Dublin this is the story of a recently retired police officer dealing with grief and getting old, overshadowed throughout by child abuse in the Catholic Church and the impact on him and his immediate family.
The book constantly unsettles you from simple things like the main character's references to cheese on toast as welsh rabbit through to whole sections of the book, which are told as fact suddenly becoming dreams or the misplaced memories of the protagonist. Excellent novel 9/10
by Jonathan Escoffery
A collection of stories about a Jamaican family making its way in America which hangs together fairly well. The ending had some sort of resolution but felt rushed compared to much of the rest of the story.
The way it deals with feelings of belonging and displacement I found really good and there were also some shocks I was not expecting as well as moments of humour. 7/10
by Chetna Maroo
An unusual storyline that includes a lot about squash!
It is the story of a young teenage girl who has lost her mother. She has two sisters and their father at a loss what to do with them starts taking them to the local squash court.
The story unfolds of how they deal with grief and growing up. It was beautifully told and ends on a bitter sweet but positive note 8/10
by Sarah Bernstein
Bernstein has been listed as one of Granta's best young novelists in 2023 although her dust jacket biography says she is from Montreal. This ambiguity flows through into this book where it proves difficult to pin anything down.
The writing is superb in places but I ended the book feeling it was an exercise in style rather than a telling of tales. I found myself asking the question how much can a novel be pared down before it ceases to be. The book has little plot-a woman travels North to care for a brother and never is accepted by the locals due to certain events she believes the town blame her for. Little in the way of subplot. The location is never clarified other than North and it gets cold in winter. The two main characters are not named and we learn little of them other than mystery. There are few other characters, all anonymous and from the town.
Having said that I keep thinking it through and trying to work out what was going on and I like that. Vintage booker material :). 5/10
by Eric Hazan
A series of vignettes about the history and current state of the city of Paris. In Hazan's normal style it is a no holds barred account where he praises and disparages in equal measure. It is a short and very enjoyable read for anyone who loves the city and will certainly provoke discussion. 8/10
by George Simenon
Maigret is off to the Normandy coast following the poisoning of a maid. The glass she drank was meant for her mistress. As you would expect not everything is as it seems as we learn more about the family history the true story behind the poisoning comes to light. Vintage Maigret 9/10
by Pierre LeMaitre
A great novella featuring the french police officer Camille Verhoeven.
Following an explosion in the middle of Paris a man hands himself in and says he has planted six other bombs due to go off at 24 hour intervals.
The pace is relentless and nail biting. Lemaitre at his best 8/10
by Salman Rushdie
A complicated tale moving from India and the Moghuls to renaissance Florence with a cast of characters who appear to move through time and have several names to boot! But, Rushdie is such a great story teller that this is an enjoyable yarn about a beautiful princess and the way her life unfolds and her son?/grandson?/none of the above? who is telling her tale to try and be recognised as a prince. We are kept guessing until the end but it was a very enjoyable journey 8/10
by Han Kang
This is a very gentle, meditative book about a lecturer in ancient greek who is going blind, and one of his students whose life experiences have left her unable to speak. The language is beautiful in places even in translation but I was halfway through before I got drawn in to the story 6/10
by Victor Heringer
A brazilian author and set in Rio in the 1970's it is the story of a young man discovering his sexuality and love in the midst of a poor district of the city. Well written and engaging I found it hard to come into land with as it was dealing with things far outside my experience, 7/10
by E. M. Forster
A short story set in the future. It was written in 1928 but following a pandemic and the rise of AI this seems a very prescient story where a community rarely meets in person and lives are regulated by the machine. A little bit eerie! 6/10
by Georges Simenon
Maigret is back in America but this time on an exchange visit much like he hosted in an earlier novel, a guest from Scotland Yard.
In the same way Maigret tried to get rid of his English guest, his American hosts try to find ways of depositing Maigret in out of the way places and so he ends up in a coroner's court where they are trying to establish the cause of death of a young woman found dead on a railway line in the middle of desert. Four airmen were with her. Maigret begins to find that human nature is the same wherever you are even if the American's go about things in a different way. In true Maigret style we never do find out the verdict of the court. Really enjoyed this one. 9/10
by John Merriman
A book about late nineteenth century France and the anarchist movement told by following the story of Emile Henry who exploded two bombs in central Paris. It is a fascinating story and told in a very engaging way.
Merriman concludes that there was no Dynamite Club as such but it is easy to draw parallels between the motivations of nineteenth century anarchists and modern day terrorists. Surely, it behoves society to look at the reasons for such actions 8/10
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
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.
by George Simenon
We go back in time to Maigret's beginnings in the police force and a case which ends unhappily for Maigret but where his methods shine through all the same. A murder in the house of a wealthy coffee merchant gets covered up by the elite-including Maigret's boss. Interesting back story for the other novels 8/10
by John Galsworthy
The second Forsyte novel takes us into the 20th century and the pain of Soames and Irene's divorce set against the background of the Boer war and the end of the Victorian age. Soames continues to be a bastard but is such a great character. 8/10
by Terence Killeen
The guide referred to in the previous post. This book was invaluable in guiding a layman like me through the maze that is ulysses, giving a guide to the style, to the references to Homer's epic and to the many real characters and places referenced in the text. Great reference book 9/10
by James Joyce
Well, well. I have finally finished this book in the year celebrating the centenary of its publication. What can I say. This was a hard read but at times incredibly engaging, as we follow Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus through one day in Dublin. Each section is told in a different style and sometimes different styles within a section. I have to say without a guide to help I would have struggled but I am glad I have read it. As a novel I would give it 3/10 but as a work of such significance you have to give it more and it will stay with me for some time. 7/10
by Manuel Astur
A book about Marcelino, a lone uneducated man who has killed his brother and has to go on the run. But, it is far more than this. A meditation on rural life, on history in this context and what it means to be human. I felt it lost its way toward the end but an enjoable short read. 7/10
by Shehan Karunatilaka
A book based in Sri Lanka at the time of the civil war. Maali used to be a war photographer but now he is dead. We meet him in the immediate afterlife and he has seven nights to decide whether to go into the light or be condemned to living in the halfway house he finds himself in.
He wants to find out how he died and why, and most importantly, to have his photos found and published. We follow him on this journey. It is both funny and sad and contains some horrifying scenes from the war but I found it gripping and thought provoking and one of three books on the booker shortlist I would like to see win 8/10
by NoViolet Bulawayo
A history of modern Zimbabwe where all the characters are animals and apart from Mugabe and the party of Power, only one individual goat is fleshed out in any storyline.
The book is very funny in places and gut wrenching in others. She uses the device of repetition a lot to emphasise a point and overdid it in places in my opinion. I also struggled with the animals a bit. I sort of get Mugabe as a horse and his wife as a donkey but who then are the cows or the ducks or the pigs and goats and why is someone a chicken and not a duck?
If I was more aware of the history I think I would have got more from the story than I did. 6/10
by Cara Black
The first novel featuring Aimee Leduc, a private detective in Paris. The good news is the fact that it is set in Paris and has some great descriptions of areas of Paris.
The story is a fast paced thriller about a murder in the Marais that has links back to wartime occupation and a murder that took place then. I had identified the killer fairly early on and some of the scenes were operating in marvel comic territory. There is also one scene near the end that is like a stage direction for a Puccini opera. I may read another one but Maigret still gets my vote when it comes to Paris detectives 6/10
by Karen Joy Fowler
A historical novel telling the story of the family of the man who killed Abraham Lincoln.
It is the story of a remarkable family but in the end I found it a bit too long and some of the characters not so interesting. However, the writing was very good and kept me hooked until the end, even though we knew all along what the end was. 7/10
by Selby Wynn Schwartz
So the first question I have is whether this is a novel. The author of course answers this by referencing Orlando as biography.
It is a fascinating journey through intellectual, artsy lesbianism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, referencing real life people and events. The unnamed narrator seems to be the lesbian corpus looking and cheering on.
It uses this looping device so the characters keep coming around again. This does mean you want to read it quickly or you can lose track easily.
I really enjoyed the book, although i haven't answered my question but it sent me scurrying to discover more about people like Romaine Brooks and Natalie Barney and that's got to be a good thing. 8/10
by Leila Mottley
This book is set in Oakland and is a fairly depressing tale of poverty in the US and survival against the odds. Despite the grim story line of a young girl, Keira, getting pulled into prostitution this book has an underlying hope and resilience that keeps you hanging in and desperate to see how it ends. 8/10
by Elizabeth Strout
A well told story about William and his ex-wife, Lucy Barton.
William's third wife is leaving him and he has discovered he has a half sister he didn't know existed. This is a third book about Lucy Barton and maybe if I had read the previous two I would have been more engaged but this did not really do much for me 5/10
by Percival Everett
So every so often a book hits the Booker longlist that doesn't feel like it belongs there.
In some ways this is such a book. It is a crime novel and it is very funny in places. It is also a book about racial tensions and hate crimes and the history of black Americans. All in all a strange mix that works and in true Booker style is less unresolved at the end with questions dropped into the readers lap to deal with. A great book but I will be amazed if it makes the shortlist. 9/10
by Hernan Diaz
Always difficult to score the first booker book of the year but this novel grew on me and I enjoyed it.
It tells the story of a rich financier and his wife in the inter-war years but uses a great device which undermines the telling of history and biography. The story unfolds in 4 different books written by different people, the last being the diary of the financiers wife which unlocks the truthfulness-or does it- of the previous three. Great storytelling either way. 9/10
by Georges Simenon
I much prefer generally(maybe with the exception of The Yellow Dog) the novels set in Paris. This novel is very much set around the streets of Paris - although the crimes have largely taken place in Normandy.
Maigret is his normal obsessive self, enjoying the Parisian way of life while fighting crime. Marvellous 8/10
by E.C.R. Lorac
Subtitled a Devon mystery this crime novel was excellent. Although writing as a man ECR was actually Edith Caroline Rivett and she died a year before I was born. This novel was published in 1946, and concerns a man invalided out of the army who rents a farm cottage and works hard renovating it and the garden with it. When he dies in a fire the mystery begins and many false trails are laid. I will try and find more of her writing 9/10
by John le Carre
I found this a bit predictable. The outcome was obvious from early on which left you cringing at some of the scenes as they played out. The training sections were full of technical detail which was tedious. All in all not my favourite 4/10
by John Le Carre
This book made Le Carre's name and it is easy to understand why. Smiley features in cameo appearances but the central character is Alec Leamas. The book is dark and brooding like the character of Leamas. A great book 8/10
by George Simenon
The best Maigret for a while where we learn a bit about the man and the fact he trained for 3 years to be a doctor. This was cut short when his father died and therefore funding with it.
His wife is in hospital and he gets caught up investigating some deaths linked to a prominent doctor in the town. 9/10
by Muriel Spark
A period piece set in South London in the late 50's. It is a fascinating peek into the lives of ordinary factory people and how their lives are upset by the arrival of a very strange scotsman who is not what he seems. Strange, funny and a little unsettling 8/10
by Anthony Trollope
Another Palliser novel.
Phineas Finn is back in London and parliament after the death of his first wife.
He is annoying as ever but the tale is told in an engaging way and is very amusing in parts. The story of the foxes and Lord Chilton is an ongoing source of fun. 7/10
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
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
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
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
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
by Katja Oskamp
A great tale of a woman who gives up her writing career to retrain as a chiropodist. Each chapter tells the story of one of her clients from the housing estates of Marzahn. I loved it 9/10
by Anthony Trollope
The third Palliser novel and not one I enjoyed that much. Lizzy is an abominable character and the narrator tells us as much at the start of the novel. The trouble is many of the other characters, Frank, Lord Fawn, Mrs Carbuncle and Mrs Hittaway to name a few, are all equally horrible. The novel does pick up pace a bit once the diamonds have actually been stolen but the book is too long for the tale it tells. The Duke of Omnium's brief appearances are great though. 5/10
by Claire Oshetsky
I am still musing over this book. It is no doubt a parable about living with challenging children be that by behavior or disability but this was a difficult read in places and yet fascinating and brilliant in others. I shall continue to think about the owl baby and there are some great musical references that I would urge any reader to follow up. 8/10
by J. Meade Falkner
A real swashbuckling tale in the style of Lorna Doone. Set on the Dorset coast near Swanage it tells the tale of John Trenchard and his life with the smugglers of that area. Good lively page turner although there is never a doubt about the outcome 8/10
by John Mullan
A good read looking at the way Dickens used certain literary constructs to achieve results and how these were often breaking the mould.
It was full of great quotes but it did use a lot of the same scenes over again which I thought was a bit lazy. There was also a lot of reference to Edwin Drood. 6.5/10
by Georges Simenon
Maigret has been retired for a couple of years when he gets an unexpected visit from an unknown old lady whose grand-daughter has apparently committed suicide. He can't help himself and gets drawn into a dark family history. Vintage stuff but we never did find out what happened to Maigret's aubergines! 8/10
by Dieter Helm
A thought provoking book examining whether we are on the right track to get to net zero by 2050 or not.
The basic premise of the book is that for the last thirty years (ie since the formation of the UNFCCC) we have been focussed on the wrong things and approaching it the wrong way in that the approach is:
1. Top down from the UN via the annual COP meetings.
2. Measures are aimed at producers and not polluters.
He backs this up with the evidence in the growth of ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere and the continued global growth in the use of fossil fuels, all of which stacks up and makes for depressing reading. One of his aims is to try and make sure we do not give up the drive for net zero as a lost cause. I admire his optimism but am still not convinced.
This being the case, however, he proposes a three-fold solution that would address the problem he has set out. These are that firstly the polluter pays. ie we move from a production based approach to a consumption based approach. This inevitably leads to some form of carbon tax which applies to consumption so it would need to be applied on imports. Interestingly, Europe is already looking at this and Macron raised it in his speech last week when France took over the presidency of the EU. He suggests that this is a simple straightforward affair and less prone to lobbying and corruption. I seem to recall the same things being said about VAT when it was introduced and that is now incredibly complex. However, I do agree that a tax on carbon has to be brought in. We will not pay for carbon voluntarily.
Secondly it is invoking the principle of public money for public goods. This applies to infrastructure and R&D. In particular he focuses on broadband and electricity infrastructures which should be built by public monies and universally available.
Thirdly there should be net environmental gain in anything we do to mitigate the effects of loss and cheating. I found this hard to seperate from the first point in that any net gain will have to be achieved through the polluter pays principle.
I liked the fact that the book does not shy away from the cost of this and even addresses the thorny moral questions of whether the rich industrialised countries should pay for adaptation measures in those countries most affected by climate change or whether we should have an obligation to accept climate refugees.
The final section of the book looks specifically at agriculture, transport and electricity. These were interesting but I got a bit lost in some of the technical arguments. All in all though a good challenging read to start the year. 8/10
by Anthony Trollope
The second of the Palliser novels following the fortunes of Phineas in love and politics over the five years he spends as an MP for his home constituency in Ireland. Very amusing in places and a great commentary on politics of the period. Our hero could be annoying at times but he gets there in the end you feel 8/10
by Abbe Prevost
I read this because of the operas by Puccini and Massenet. It definitely lends itself to opera, with a narrative that is both dramatic and absurd, but having said that I enjoyed it. The character of Des Grieux is much better drawn than Manon but he manages to invoke our sympathy for both. Like all good opera it does not end well! 7/10
David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters
Does what the title says with lots of graphs and charts showing how the virus has affected our lives up to June 2021. Written in plain english and with a light touch this is a very readable survey of the pandemic thus far. 8/10
A criminal year with 10 Maigret's, 2 George Smiley's and a French detective from pre revolutionary France.
The Booker list was quite enjoyable this year. I liked the winner but my favourites were probably Great Circle and A Town Called Solace.
However, my book of the year must be Orlando Figes' book, The Crimean War. It was for a layman like me so engaging and informative. A close run contender would be Desert by JMG Le Clezio.
by J F Parot
The first book featuring Nicolas Le Floch investigating the disappearance of a police officer. Set in the eighteenth century it is a great page turner. 7/10
by Angelique Villeneuve
A book about a family in 1918 Paris where the husband has returned from the war with his face half blown off. It gently tells the story of how they learn to live together again. It is set in bleak times but is told with a gentleness and an overriding sense of hope. I liked it 9/10
by Gohril Gabrielsen
A researcher on her own in the far North of Norway gradually unravelling. I didn't enjoy this even though it has a great if somewhat frustrating end to the book 5/10
by Lisa Taddeo
Not sure what I made of this. Our heroine/anti-heroine is Joan and she is depraved by her own assessment.
The book is her trying to explain to (for most of the book) an unknown character the reasons why she has turned out so. It is a brutal book and yet you do feel drawn to and repulsed by Joan in equal measure. She has so little empathy for others but there are mostly plausible reasons for this. It definitely kept me engaged 7/10
by Herve le Corre
This is an odd but interesting book. It is a love story, a police investigation into abduction, and a history of the Paris Commune or more particularly, it's bloody final 10 days. At times I found it a bit drawn out whereas at other times it fairly rattled along. It managed to portray both the horrors and the hope of the Commune and in some way explain why that hope has travelled down through the years. 7/10
by Stefan Zweig
A brief introduction to Freuds life and work, written during Freud's lifetime (1931). It was interesting but a bit dry in the delivery at times. 5/10
by John Le Carre
The second Smiley novel and very good. No spies in sight but a straight whodunnit in a posh english public school. 8/10
