A very likeable book by a likeable writer. Unsurprisingly, I like it! It tells of Stephen and Jean, a couple that Julian Barnes introduced as a student. They eventually broke up, but decades later he met them both independently again, and introduced them again, and they became a couple again. This is their story. But the main character is Barnes himself.
Continue reading
I like this! I’m a sucker for anything related to Alice in Wonderland. This is a sequel of sorts – the protagonist Alyce is the granddaughter of the original Alice, who she thinks of as a peculiar old lady who tells all these outlandish stories. When Alyce accidentally intercepts Alice’s tea party invitation, she ends up in Wonderland herself, and meets the expected bunch of eccentrics, including some favourites from the original book.
Continue reading
In 1959 the Clutter family, of Holcomb, Kansas, USA, were all murdered by a couple of home invaders. Truman Capote decided to go to Kansas to research and write this book about the crime and the investigation. Fortunately, he stayed with the project long enough for the crime to be solved – I don’t think this book would have been quite as good otherwise.
Continue reading
This murder mystery starts with an account written by an acquaintance of the victim. It sets the scene nicely. The next chapter was written from a different point of view, just to mix things up. I was pleased as well as surprised when the rug was pulled from under me quite early on (this is a mystery story after all).
Continue reading
This book is about the life and (mostly failed) loves of three women: Chia, her friend Zikora and her cousin Omelogor. They are all Nigerian, living variously in the USA and Nigeria, quite well-off, and each with their own interesting lives and stories. There is a fourth woman too, Kadiatou, an associate of Chia. She is also an African (albeit Guinean) living in the USA, but not at all well-off. Her role in the novel is quite different.
Continue reading
Two contrasting stream-of-consciousness narratives in this novel, set 100 years ago. Mrs Dalloway is preparing to host a party – we go inside her thoughts and also those of various friends and associates, so we get a full picture of her and her milieu. At the same time, we enter the lonely and disordered mind of Septimus Smith, a shell-shocked war veteran, and his put-upon wife Rezia. The two stories glance off one another at times during the novel. Mrs Dalloway’s narrative is interesting, petty, expansive, while Smith’s is just sad, especially by way of contrast.
Continue reading
This is the third volume of In Search of Lost Time, in which our hero (I’ll call him Marcel even though that’s probably not his name) enters the world of high society, basically by stalking Mme de Guermantes until he falls in with her social set and gets invited to her salons. In the meantime, a lot happens (relatively speaking; this is not The Three Musketeers). He hangs out with his friend Robert de Saint-Loup, who inexplicably thinks very highly of him. At one point Saint-Loup and friends have a long discussion of military strategy – I thought of that late chapter of War & Peace where the novel suddenly turned into a field marshal’s manual.
Continue reading
Lucrezia’s husband is planning to murder her – what can she do about it? This book is a compelling dive into the personal and political world of 15th-century Florentine royalty. It’s a fictionalised account of a real troubled marriage, with vividly-drawn characters and relationships. I enjoyed reading it even though I found the ending somewhat unsatisfying.
Continue reading
As usual with Wodehouse, I was chuckling all the way through this book. This is the first Lord Ickenham story I have read. He is a great character, like a haphazardly mischievous version of Jeeves. The many characters get themselves into the stickiest of situations, but Ickenham orchestrates the chaos like a maestro, and all’s well that ends well.
This is a great variation on the time-loop story. Tara, our narrator, wakes up on November 19 only to discover that it’s actually November 18 again. For the rest of the book she repeats November 18 every day, gradually realising what has happened and coming to terms with it. She even eventually manages to explain to her husband what has happened. Unfortunately, of course, she has to explain it to him again the next day, and the next, and the next, since he doesn’t remember the previous November 18ths that she has lived through.
Continue reading