Alphabetical Diaries

 by Sheila Heti

In 1960 Raymond Queneau and others founded the group OuLiPo which in French is short for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle. It translates as workshop for potential literature. The authors who formed the group would write under certain self imposed constraints. So for instance Georges Perec wrote a novel which never used the letter 'e'. Queneau wrote a novel telling the same episode in 99 different ways, each one using a different style.

This book reminded me of this group in that this supposed diary has been culled from 10 years of the authors journal and rearranged in alphabetical order with each letter providing a chapter (with the exception of x). 

As an exercise in style it is an interesting idea. As a read I found it tedious, with the occasional piece of humour or beautiful sentence. As with any journal I guess, it was all rather self-absorbed. 5/10 

The Widow Couderc

 by Georges Simenon

This is a story of Tati, who is the eponymous widow of the title. She lives an unusual life looking after her husband's family smallholding as well as her father in law. She meets Jean on the bus and takes him in to help look after the property. The relationship that develops between them is fraught with tension from the start and you know it cannot end well. The tension holds throughout but I felt the story unravelled towards the end. 7/10

The Old Devils

 by Kingsley Amis

This book won the Booker prize in 1986 but I do not think it has aged well. Very much of it's time many of the references seem a bit off nowadays. Having said that a lot of the humour is very funny and the last 50 pages are a very good read. Much of the rest of the book I found hard to follow as the characters were quite shallowly drawn so it was hard to differentiate one ageing drinker from another. 5/10

Baumgartner

 by Paul Auster

The musings of a man in his early seventies who lost his wife ten years before in an accident.

He is still dealing with grief and is having to handle getting older and falling down stairs and forgetting things. 

I imagine the book would only resonate with people over sixty but I enjoyed it with its at times rambling nature. I also wish somebody would write Sy Baumgartner's book, Mysteries of the Wheel! 8/10

Maigret and the Tall Woman

 by Georges Simenon

Maigret gets approached by an old prostitute when her safe breaking husband disappears after finding a dead body in a house he was burgling.

A long investigation takes place involving the dentist and his mother who live in the house. A good story but we never found out if the safebreaker came back to Paris! 8/10

Kala

 by Colin Walsh

A fast moving mystery about an old case of a girl who disappeared in Ireland 15 years ago, but some bones have been found just as some of her old friends are returning to the home town. Is it Kala? If it is what happened all those years ago. Good story 7/10

Bibliomaniac

 by Robin Ince

Subtitled An Obsessive's tour of the Bookshops of Britain, this is a diary of that tour which did what it said on the can. It is tiring just to read but what a trip that must have been. It leaves you with a list of shops you want to visit and another list of books you want to buy.
A good book to read when you don't want to be concentrating too much and are happy to let the references you don't get float off into the ether 7/10

Maigret Takes a Room

 by George Simenon

One of Maigret's officers is shot and wounded on a stake-out. As Mme Maigret is away, Maigret stays in a small boarding house on the street where the shooting took place and as ever the plot is more complicated than first appears. 8/10

The End of Eddy

 by Edouard Louis

A bleak French tale of growing up poor and gay in a small northern manufacturing town. It was a tough read and drew comparisons with Shuggie Bain-a book I preferred. 6/10

Vanity Fair

By WM Thackeray 

Brilliant.  Very funny in places and peopled with interesting characters.  Becky Sharp is complex but great. Some of the names are ridiculous but I really enjoyed this. 8/10

About Uncle

By Rebecca Gisler

A strange short novel set in Brittany about a brother and sister and their ill uncle. Funny in places, wierd in others,  I was never sure I was getting what was going on. 6/10

Anthony Trollope - A Victorian in his world

 by Richard Mullen

This book, published in 1990 is clearly written by a Trollope enthusiast and is none the worse for that. It is a very readable and comprehensive introduction to the man and his writing. It quotes widely from the novels showing how his writing is drawn from his life which was lived at a crazy pace. As well as writing 80 books he had a 30 year career in the post office and travelled widely around the globe and Europe. 

The writing is very readable and the author's asides (mimicking Trollope?) are very amusing. A very enjoyable read. 9/10 

Maigret at Picratt's

By George's Simenon

An interesting change of tone as Maigret investigates the murder of a stripper in Montmartre. The language is more earthy and the police are tougher in their approach but the story was good 7/10

Review of the Year 2023

 Another interesting year but no totally stand out books. I read three Rushdie novels of which Shalimar the Clown was good and the Enchantress of Florence fun. His latest book Victory City, I did not enjoy so much.

On the Booker front my two favourite books did not make the shortlist(Sebastian Barry and Tan twe Eng) but the winner Prophet Song was ok but not standout.

In non fiction Technofeudalism was interesting and tied in well with Runciman's How Democracy Ends, but my favourite was probably writers and revolution about 1848 as seen through different writers eyes.

My standout book of the year. There were some good new books from Barbara Kingsolver, Zadie Smith and Sebastian Faulks but the most memorable book was a Simenon book. Not Maigret, although Maigret's Memoirs was great fun, but The Man who Watched the Trains go By. It was scary and compelling. This probably was followed by The Wide World, the first in a new trilogy by Pierre LeMaitre.

Love in a Time of Hate

 by Florian Illies

The sub-title of this book is Art and Passion in the shadow of War, 1929-1939. It is a wide ranging look at numerous artists during that period and their complicated love lives. That said the vast array of people covered is also the books weakness as it becomes impossible to keep up with who they are all as we jump in and out of stories. 6/10

The Seventh Son

 by Sebastian Faulks

Seth was the seventh son of Adam and also the name given to the hero of this book who is born to two London based people via a surrogate mother supposedly using their eggs and sperm. However, the rich entrepreneur who runs the clinic has some problems of his own regarding the dementia that is killing his father and he uses his clinic to carry out some "research" that impacts on the child born in 2031. It is a thought provoking story as we follow Seth and his parents and surrogate mother over the next 25 years with some twists and turns along the way. 8/10

Maigret's Memoirs

 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

As the Eagle Flies

 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

The Fraud

 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

Technofeudalism

 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

Prophet Song

 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

The Wide World

 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

The Bee Sting

 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

Things I don't want to Know

 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

Madame Maigret's Friend

 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

Follow the Money

 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

How to Build a Boat

 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 

This Other Eden

 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

All the Little Bird Hearts

 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

A Spell of Good Things

 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

Old God's Time

 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

If I survive you

 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

Western Lane

 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

Study for Obedience

 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

The House of Doors

By Tan Twan Eng

An amazing mingling of fact and fiction built around a visit by Somerset Maugham to Malaysia in the 1920's but looking back to some real events in 1910/11. 

It is a wonderful evocation of memory, of what might have been and the sadness of lost love 9/10

The Man Who Watched the Trains go By

By George Simenon

Not a Maigret but a fantastic read. Very dark. A normal guy in Holland is suddenly transformed by events in his employer's business. Edge of the seat stuff 9/10

Paris in Turmoil

 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

Maigret and the Old Lady

 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

Chinaman

By Shehan Karunatilaka

A very funny, cricket rich book about a mystery Sri Lankan cricketer called Pradeep Matthew. 

It is told by an unreliable narrator who is 64 and drinking himself to death. This story of his attempts to find the man and tell his story against the background of civil war in Sri Lanka is great. 8/10

Mrs. S

By K. Patrick

A lesbian romance set in a girls boarding school in the UK. The two main characters are an Australian women in her early twenties and the headmaster's wife, Mrs S. 

The tension is built in an incredible fashion which I really enjoyed. The sex when it arrives is explicit and breaks the tension in a way that was both a relief and disappointing. 

An honourable mention for the house mistress -a fellow  lesbian- who was a true friend and brought some light relief when needed. 8/10

Rosy & John

 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

The Enchantress of Florence

 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

Greek Lessons

 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

The love of singular men

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

The Machine Stops

 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

Maigret at the Coroner's

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

Why Didn't they ask Evans

By Agatha Christie

A crime that would have gone undetected after someone falls over a cliff in Wales. Enter Bobby and Frankie to solve the case. It was a bit Enid Blyton on the audio book I listened to but enjoyed the plot. 5/10

The Liar's Dictionary

By Eley Williams 

A fun novel about words. Set in the current day and the start of the previous century it is the story of a dictionary and some mischief making by one of the compilers in the earlier time period. Great larks and sent me to a dictionary on many occasions 8/10

How Democracy Ends

By David Runciman 

Spoiler alert. This book does not answer the question implicit in the title.

However, it is a thought provoking missive on where democracy has reached in the West and some of the possible paths it might take.

There are some jarring sound bite like sentences but ignore those and it was an accessible and enjoyable read 7/10

Nights of Plague

By Orhan Pamuk 

Pamuk at his best, writing about political shenanigans and religious/racial tensions. All set against the background of the plague. It is a long book but I found it compelling reading 8/10

History. A Mess.

By Sigrún Pálsdóttir

A story set partly in Oxford and partly in Iceland and involving a PhD student who makes a discovery that she discovers later may not be correct. As a consequence of decisions she makes her health suffers and we follow this journey.  Has a great twist at the end 8/10

Writers and Revolution

By Jonathan Beecher

A fascinating book looking at the 1848 revolutionary events in France through the writing of 9 different authors. Each chapter would stand alone and this led to some repetition, but that aside it was an enjoyable and engaging read 8/10

The Prime Minister

By Anthony Trollope 

The fifth book in the Palliser series and one I enjoyed. The heroine was milked of every ounce of melodrama but apart from that it was amusing and painted a more vulnerable side of Planty Palliser which worked well 8/10

Victory City

By Salman Rushdie

A story about a mythical figure who like the novelist creates a city and empire and all its inhabitants from nothing. Rushdie's imagination is amazing and this is a great tale. 7/10

Birnam Wood

By Eleanor Catton

A mystery/thriller set in New Zealand where a billionaire crosses paths with an ecological action group. It was a quick read but it never quite worked for me. The characters were all a bit too stiff and playing to stereotypes. 

Having said that I didn't see the end coming in quite the way it did. 6/10

Shalimar the Clown

By Salman Rushdie

A story spread across the globe but centred in Kashmir and the tensions of that region since partition. 

I found it a slow start but it gathered pace as the novel unfolds. The characters are large and engaging and as ever the plot comes from a fascinatingly creative mind. 8/10

Mirror of our Sorrows

By Pierre LeMaitre

The third in the interwar trilogy which sees some previous characters return as the German invasion of France in June 1940 is taking place.

After a strange encounter between a doctor and a waitress followed by a suicide we learn the history that led to this moment. 

A good read but lacked some of the punch of the earlier books. 6/10

My Friend Maigret

By George Simenon

Maigret has an English detective from Scotland Yard shadowing him and he is not too happy about it. They end up in the South of France investigating a murder of someone who claimed Maigret was a friend. Good yarn 8/10

Demon Copperhead

By Barbara Kingsolver

An ambitious book mirroring David Copperfield in a modern American setting. Damon is brought up on a trailer park and then in foster care. The story follows his life with Damon as narrator.

The writing is good but I found the constant referencing of the Dickens work a distraction. 6/10

The Dead Secret

By Wilkie Collins

Set around a house by the sea in Cornwall this is a mystery about a housekeeper and her mistress and a secret they held between them. The melodrama is a tad too high and the secret is easily guessed, but it was a fun read nonetheless 7/10

The Dynamite Club

 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

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

Maigret's first case

 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

In Chancery

 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

Ulysses Unbound

 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

Ulysses

 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

The Man of Property

By John Galsworthy

The first novel of the Forsyte saga and the BBC adaptation comes flooding back even though it was 50 years ago and me barely in my teens.  The novel paints Soames exactly as I remember him but with the added touches only a novel can bring. It paints a fantastic picture of life in late nineteenth century Britain for a narrow bunch of the aspiring middle class. Narrow in scope but great in execution  9/10

The Secret Life of Writers

By Guillaume Musso

A very engaging crime mystery set on a French island in the Mediterranean. A woman is found murdered in a remote spot, but all is not what it seems. But more than this the book plays with the reader around areas such as who is writing what and what is real. Great larks 9/10

Shrines of Gaiety

By Kate Atkinson

Set in the 1920's this is the story of a tough woman who ran a string of London nightclubs and of a policeman who tried to bring her down together with a host of other characters.  Not my favourite of her novels but still enjoyable 7/10

Body Kintsugi

By Senka Mariç 

This was a hard read. The story of a woman's experience of breast cancer it was unrelenting in how difficult this is to deal with. Even though it ended positively it left me feeling broken. Strong, powerful writing but not for the faint hearted! 6/10

Of Saints and Miracles

 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

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

 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

Glory

 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

Murder in the Marais

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

Booth

 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

Small Things Like These

By Claire Keegan 

Furlong is a coal merchant in Ireland. He was born out of wedlock in 1946 but his mother was allowed to stay with her employer and he was brought up in the house never knowing his father.

The story is set in 1985 and Furlong is happily married with five daughters. He delivers to a convent which is the site of a Magdalen laundry. The story reflects on Furlong's past and a young woman He comes across at the convent.

It is a short but poignant story, beautifully told. 8/10

Treacle Walker

By Alan Garner

A strange mix of dreamworld, comic caper and philosophical musing  who was Treacle Walker, who was Jo. Not sure I got this at all 5/10

After Sappho

 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

Nightcrawling

 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 

Oh William!

 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

The Trees

 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

Trust

 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

Maigret's Dead Man

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

Fire in the Thatch

 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

The Looking Glass War

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

The Spy who Came in from the Cold

 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

Maigret's holiday

 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

The Ballad of Peckham Rye

 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

Phineas Redux

 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

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

Marzahn, mon amour

 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

The Eustace Diamonds

 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