Search results

I'm with you completely on A Brief History of Seven Killings. Almost unreadable and a blatant rip-off of the far superior City of God, just set in Jamaica rather than Rio. You've convinced me to visit my local library but unfortunately it doesn't help much with my annual Man Booker Prize...

Only if you think of reading as a way to fill in spare time.

I'm working my way steadily through the Man Booker Int'l longlist with varied results. It's certainly not a vintage year from what I've read so far. Jenny Espenbeck - 'Go, Went, Gone' Another 'refugees in Europe' story. I suspect that this will be a recurring theme in the prize longlists. I...

Javier Cercas - 'The Imposter' This is 1 of the 13 longlisted novels on the 2018 Man Booker Int'l list and without doubt one of the most thought-provoking books I've read in years. It's the true story of Enric Marco who was president of the Spanish victims of the Nazi slave labour camps...

I finished reading 'Ready Player One' a few days ago and being very unwell of late and stuck at home it's given me a lot of time to think about why I didn't much like it despite it getting a lot of rave reviews. A word of warning, there's a lot of plot spoilers in what follows and apologies for...

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. The book has a strong and exciting beginning and a very novel concept: set in southern America in times of slavery, runaway slaves make use of the underground railway to transport them to the North and freedom. 'Underground Railway' in this case is...

Currently on book 7 of my challenge Conor Whitehead 'Underground Railroad'. Thoroughly enjoying it so far and can see why it has won so many plaudits. Quick review of the last 3 books I read in the challenge. Jon McGregor 'Reservoir 13'. Very difficult to review without giving the plot away but...

I love reading Murakami. Excellent choice.

Just finished reading Paul Auster's 4321 as part of my ~Man Booker Challenge. The book is very long and hence gets a very long review. Apologies in advance. Taking its cue from the Robert Frost poem about the ‘road less travelled’, Auster explores the life of a middle-class Jewish boy...

Zadie Smith - 'Swing Time' A book about friendship, race and belonging, and dance. Possibly Zadie Smith's best book since White Teeth. it tells the story of an unnamed narrator and her childhood friend, their mutual love of the golden age of film musicals and their lives and relationship as...

The Man Booker long list was announced yesterday and that means my annual attempt at reading all 13 long-listed books. I didn't get too far with last year's challenge but I've more time this year to devote to it so I'm hopeful of completing the task. What usually scuppers me are the novels by...

I finally gave up on the book this morning on my commute. Life's too short and I really don't want to read the same page 3 times because I've glossed (sic) over yet another full description of a monastery fresco. Now onto Ismail Kadare 'The Traitor's Niche'. This one has a plot so I'm hoping...

I read quite a few Chester Himes books recently. Sort of Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett type novels but set in black Harlem. I've thoroughly enjoyed them as I took a break from reading 'War and Turpentine' the Man Booker book I was reading just had me daydreaming and I wasn't taking...

I'm now on the 4th of the 13 books from the Man Booker Int'l longlist. Fever Dream is a (thankfully) very short book by Argentine author Samanta Schweblin with the main character unconscious in hospital and in whose dreams she talks with a dead boy. It's extremely confusing and deliberately...

I spend about 2-3 hours a day reading on the train and maybe an hour or two at night in bed. When the Man Booker lists come through I tend just to read those but if the book was particularly heavy-going or just not enjoyable, I'll switch to an easy-read thriller. There's always something like 2...

You're spot on about The Four Books. It started off routinely enough with a sort of Catch-22 black humour to it but by the middle of the book it got very dark indeed and the end was about as bleak as anything I've read. Cheers for the heads up on the other books. I'll try to check them out.

The Man Booker Int'l 2017 longlist was announced the other day and I'm going to try to read as many as possible. I think I did most if not all last year and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Last night I read "A Horse Walks Into A Bar" by David Grossman. It's a short novel that revolves around...

I got through Hiromi Kawakami 'The Briefcase' (also titled 'Strange Weather In Tokyo') very quickly. This is the first book by this author that I've read and I'll definitely look out for more. Relatively short, it's about a very slowly blossoming love affair between a thirty something woman and...

Andrey Kurkov - Death and the Penguin. Late '90s novel set in Kiev about an obituary writer, who is being pursued by the Ukrainian mafia, and his pet penguin. Very satirical, very funny, surreal and offbeat reminds me of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita or Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. An easy...

I have, that's a great call. It was my favourite from that year by a long chalk. It reminded me very much of Douglas Coupland in style. I did think though that it ended rather abruptly, almost as if I'd only read two-thirds of a book.