The Wedding People - Alison Espach

 72%

14.03.25

Despite the terrible cover and misleading but actually perfect title, this is as much proper literary fiction as it is a rom com - in more ways than one, as the main character relates everything to classic novels. A reflection on what makes a worthwhile life, it was the sharp observations that made it so good, rendering the characters real and relatable, even when they behaved badly. 

Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

 72%

22.05.22

I loved this. I described Never Let Me Go as 'science fiction with depth' and this explores the same themes from a different angle. You don't need a thrilling plot to create a compelling story, and this beautiful, gentle and detached narrative encompassed the nature of humanity, of diversity and love and life and death. And how I cried for poor, sweet Klara at the end.

Cuckoo Song - Frances Hardinge

72%
25.04.20

Finally, something worth reading. In other hands, the simile-heavy style would be overwritten, and the Gothic/fantasy/social commentary plot disjointed. But somehow Hardinge makes it work, and work like a, well, song. Even better than 'A Skinful of Shadows' (but unfortunately with the same occasional jarring phrasing that a decent copy edit should have sorted out).

Less - Andrew Sean Greer

72%
13.10.18

It would have been so easy to find this book and its hapless, Sterne-inspired hero annoying, for it to have fallen on the side of pretension rather than invention. It could have been trite and predictable - and it very nearly is. But it's not. It's really rather wonderful - funny, sharp, warm, wise and (secretly, subtly) clever and complex.

Golden Hill - Francis Spufford

72%
13.02.17

I wait ages for a decent novel and then two come along together, although I imagine this tour de force provokes strong reactions either way. Personally, I enjoyed the nods to 17th-century picaresque farce, the Henry Fielding references and the unusual, intriguing setting. The air of mystery around the central character was well sustained, and there is probably much to consider if you fancy writing an essay about it. But I don't.

A Game of Thrones - George RR Martin

72%
21.02.16

It's an unpromising mix of things I don't usually choose to read: dodgy sex, graphic violence, tedious politics, suffering innocents and superfluous adjectives. It didn't end properly, there were too many names, and one story arc remained totally detached from the rest. But it's also clever and well constructed with fascinating, three-dimensional characters and [sighs in resignation] I couldn't put it down.

Elizabeth is Missing - Emma Healey

72%
08.03.15

I do like an unreliable narrator and this is a tour de force. Beautiful language, clever structure and careful pacing - one of those novels I'll be recommending to anyone who so much as mentions they're looking for something to read.

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor

73%

17.03.13

I'm not a great fan of tragi-comedy - there's nothing very funny about tragedy. But this rather wonderful story succeeds in being both wry and devastating in its dissection of old age - its loneliness, its small joys, its humour, its social embarrassments - and that in fact, this is the stuff of life at any age. Some say it's depressing, but the complexity of character and plot in such a short novel, combined with the beauty of its writing and power of its final pages, rather makes it oddly uplifting, the sort of book that sticks in your mind.

NB: Oddly, I wasn't too impressed by another of Taylor's novels, 'A Game of Hide and Seek'.

Heft - Liz Moore

72%
29.05.12

This is a proper book, physically and psychologically. Heft, "the weight of someone or something", could be its only title. First of all, it's beautifully produced: satisfyingly thick pages, striking embossed cover - none of your Kindle nonsense here. The story is clear-eyed, engaging, character-driven, perhaps a touch sentimental but with a core of hard reality that draws it back from the edge. But it's really the quality of the writing that lends it both weight and lightness. Sharply phrased, never jarring or laboured, a sense of safe hands. My obligatory complaint is that, of the two narrators, Arthur is much more interesting than Kel yet features less, which rather unbalanced the narrative. But watch and learn, writers, watch and learn.

Case Histories - Kate Atkinson

72%
13.06.05




I wish Kate Atkinson has written more novels because (overlooking the flabby 'Emotionally Weird') the ones she's written so far are fab, in a dark, clever, eccentric kind of way. In her world, there is no distinction at all between tragedy and comedy, which is an enlightening outlook that's hardly like fiction at all on close inspection.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J K Rowling

72%
16.04.05




I really wanted to hate this - there are so many reasons why it should be bad. For one, it doesn't even pretend to be a children's book - it's twice as long as it ought to be, it uses difficult vocabulary, it's violent and the complex politics are bewildering to anyone. The power and arrogance of the author has left it virtually unedited. The story doesn't always make sense. But... it's exciting and unpredictable, imaginative and compelling. What is there not to like?

Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler

72%
09.08.04

Wise and wonderful, as always, but it tails off towards the end, when the focus seems to zoom out and the details disappear. But for the most part, another model novel.

Nature via Nurture - Matt Ridley

72%
11.06.04




Popular science can be fascinating! It's a revelation to read such a finely written book, which doesn't even have a plot.

Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver

 72%
06.02.02




Reading three or four books at once meant that I read this one as perhaps was intended - the language and the hot summer it described are so intense that it's best read in small chunks. Like 'Pigs in Heaven', it was educational too, and was a successful manifesto for encouraging humans to live in harmony with nature. Preachy, perhaps, but saved by its poetry and original characters. Better sex scenes than in 'Rescue Me' as well.

Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas - Louise Rennison

72%
02.01.02




It's very funny, it's very clever and it only takes 2 hours to read. Why weren't there teenage books like this when I was a teenager? Though I probably wouldn't have appreciated the satire.