Midnight's Children

 by Salman Rushdie

The novel that probably established, and keeps, Rushdie amongst the list of great living authors. 

Saleem is born with one thousand and one others at midnight on Indian independence day. Those that survive all have some unusual power and the book is Saleem's sort of autobiography as well as a potted history of India and Pakistan since independence. It is very absorbing and in places very funny; for me it is the closest I have come to a twentieth century Dickens. The book had me regularly reaching for Wikipedia to check out people and events from history. It is not an easy read but definitely worth keeping going through the 650 pages that make it up. 8/10

The Acupulco

 by Simone Buchholz

Good to see Chastity Riley again but this book was not great. A serial killer targeting dancers in a nightclub. As you would expect it raced along but didn't really take me along with it 5/10

Eugenie

 by Desmond Seward

A life of the last empress of France by a not totally unbiased biographer. He clearly is a fan and has a remote family connection back to the second empire.

That aside, I enjoyed this book and it gives a good introduction to the workings of the second empire and the contradictions it contained. She is painted as a formidable woman but with a love for France that was never wholly accepted by its citizens. The book discusses but reaches no clear conclusion on the thing that drove her. Was she swayed more by her desire to see her son as emperor or by her love for France? 8/10

Maigret's Secret

 by Georges Simenon

This story starts brilliantly with a rice pudding being enjoyed by Maigret while dining with his wife at their friend's house. After dinner Maigret starts to reminisce on a previous case which was taken out of his hands by the examining magistrate but about which Maigret always had doubts. A man was accused of killing his wife but he maintains his innocence even as evidence mounts against him. 9/10

The Library Thief

 by Kuchenga Shenje

A mystery set at the turn of the nineteenth century involving a young woman who is an expert book restorer. As we start the novel she has been thrown out of her home by her father for some unseemly goings on with a young anarchist friend of hers and the rest of the story is about how she makes her way,

Full of twists and turns, highlighting the precarious position of a woman alone at this time, it is a real page turner to the end. I found the writing style a bit laboured at times but enjoyed the tale itself. 7/10

Audition

 by Katie Kitamura

This novel felt like a product of a creative writing class with a technically clever twist half way through but did not work for me. The narrator is a middle-aged actress, who at the start of the novel is rehearsing for a new play which in the second part is up and running very successfully, but the story is about her personla life with husband and family.

There is a reference in the first half to a phone app which seems incongruous given the timeframe referred to and this may have put me off early on, but while I enjoyed some of the style I did not enjoy this book. 6/10

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

 by Kiran Desai

Slow moving but wonderfully told tale of two young Indians at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, initially living in the US and whom there grandparents and parents try to arrange a marriage for. They both reject this but do eventually meet after 250 pages. The characters are well drawn and the story unfolds. Sonia's early abusive lover-an artist-is the only character it is hard to come into land with but this was a novel that was like a lovely cushion you could relax into 9/10

Gabriel's Moon

 by William Boyd

A really enjoyable spy caper set in the early 1960's. The characters are brilliantly drawn, although with an annoying habit of always telling us what they are wearing. Le Carre it is not but a page turner it most definitely is 7/10

Seascraper

 by Benjamin Wood

The story of Thomas, set in the late fifties in a Northern coastal town, where he plies a thankless trade scraping shellfish with a horse and cart and nets at low tide. His life is interrupted by a film director wanting to employ him. The story plays out over a few days but has implications for longer. It is a short novel but beautifully told. Should have made the shortlist but did not 9/10

Flashlight

 by Susan Choi

A story told from the perspectives of four main characters over a period of several decades from the end of the twentieth century to the present. Louisa is found nearly drowned on a beach near her house. Her father, who left the house with her is missing presumed drowned although his body is never found. Her mother is suffering from MS although at this point it has not been fully diagnosed. The story of their lives unfolds over time and through Japan and Korea and America. It is beautifully told and after a slow start it's pace picks up toward a poignant ending 9/10

The Mistress of Paris

 by Catherine Hewitt

The rags to riches story of a nineteenth century courtesan. The story was really interesting, Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne as she ended up calling herself moved in the highest circles of society and became one of the richest people in Paris. She was clearly single minded and ruthless in the operation of her profession. I did at times feel the author was a frustrated fiction writer but that aside had clearly done a lot of research. 7/10

Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses

 by Georges Simenon

Maigret is thinking about impending retirement and getting grumpy. He has to deal with a young new prosecutor who he does not take to and in the middle of this he has to deal with a murder in a house where nobody wants to talk about what happened. Enjoyable for the grumpy Maigret on show. 8/10

Endling

 by Maria Reva

A wacky read that I enjoyed immensely. It is set in Ukraine just at the time the Russian invasion is starting in 2022. It involves an endangered snail called Lefty and some young women involved in the mail order bride industry together with some of the would be Western husbands. It does get a little complicated. It made me laugh, it made me sad, it made me question and wonder. It has the most ambivalent of endings. What more do you want from a novel. I hope it makes the Booker shortlist but it may be a bit too off piste for this. 9/10

Universality

 by Natasha Brown

A disappointing read. It started with a great  plot: a man attacked with a gold bar while squatting in an old farmhouse. He turns out to be the leader of an anti-capitalist group and the assailant is not only a member of the group but also the son of a journalist who is/was sleeping with the owner of the gold bar.

A great start but it all rather fizzled out by the end and seemed more of a surrender to the sorry state we are in than anything else. Perhaps even our writers are getting worn down by our current plight 6/10

One Boat

 by Jonathan Buckley

Set almost entirely at a Greek seaside village/town a British women returns to the same place nine years after her last visit when she came to deal with loss of a parent (death) and a husband(divorce). This time she is dealing with loss again.

The story jumps between the two times and the people she met and interacted with on the first visit. They have moved on, she may not have but she has to deal with the changes. It was a very enjoyable read with the story lapping around you like the ocean. My only regret was the ending and her return to the UK where she discusses with her new partner the plan to turn her notes into a book. It didn't see needed to me but a minor quibble. 8/10

Misinterpretation

 by Ledia Xhoga

An Albanian translator/interpreter living in New York runs into problems when working for a Kosovar who has traumas he is trying to work through. She is forced to face some things in her own life as her lack of appropriate boundaries gets her mixed up in some threatening situations. This was a slow moving book at the start but gathered pace and engaged me more and more as it progressed. I liked it 8/10

The Rest of Our Lives

 by Ben Markovits

A road trip of sorts set in America. Tom's daughter is heading off to college and he and his wife have been not getting along since she had an affair of sorts six years previously. This could be the time for a break so after dropping off his daughter he keeps driving West and reflecting on his life, 

I found a lot of the basketball and education references difficult, but they probably are fine if you understand American culture. It didn't quite work for me although I did recognise and enjoy some of the references to getting older and the life unfulfilled. 6/10

Flesh

 by David Szalay

The story of a man who starts life with little in a flat in Hungary and ends life with little in a flat in Hungary. A lot happens in between as we move from Hungary to Iraq and to London, and up and down society. As a consequence the story pulls you along as we get close to the central character but never really know him. His mother features at various times through the story but I found her a bit unbelievable.  An interesting read 7/10

Maigret's Doubts

 by Georges Simenon

Very enjoyable, bordering on Simenon's psychological side this story starts with a man coming to tell Maigret that he is going to be killed by his wife. Not long after the wife arrives and Maigret spends the rest of the book trying to unravel what and who he is dealing with. 9/10

Maigret Travels

By Georges Simenon 

A great case where Maigret moves in the world of the super rich following clues around France and Europe after a wealthy English man is found dead in his hotel bath. 8/10