Category Archives: Literature

Book Review: John Burdett – Bangkok Eight

Posted on June 5, 2018 by

John Burdett’s book is a very exotic thriller. Burdett begins Bangkok Eight with a murder. Unlike routine thrillers this murder isn’t crude and obvious. This murder is exquisite in its sophistication. Bangkok Eight hasn’t anything like the Anglo-Saxon thriller genre. … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Keigo Higashino – The Devotion of Suspect X (translated by Alexander O Smith)

Posted on May 8, 2018 by

Those of us who read a lot of Anglo-American thrillers are used to a particular narrative arc. There’s usually a sadistic murder say of a woman/women, a maverick Detective Inspector accompanied by a hero-worshipping sergeant, who solve the crime. Often … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Andre Aciman – Call me by your name

Posted on May 1, 2018 by

Aciman’s wonderfully sensitive book about a teenager’s rite-of-passage proved eminently translatable to the big screen. It was a wonderful film but the book is possibly(?) better. Aciman sets his novel in an erudite hot-house intellectual atmosphere. Elio, the son of … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Mohsin Hamid ~ How to get filthy rich in Rising Asia

Posted on April 24, 2018 by

When your first book is The Reluctant Fundamentalist the bar is set very high indeed for subsequent books. The temptation is to write the same book again. I have in mind Lee Child, Ian Rankin et al. who write scores … Continue reading →

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Book review: Anthony Trollope~ The way we live now (1875)

Posted on April 17, 2018 by

If you want a long (780 pages) novel that you can wallow in like a warm bath that doesn’t get cold and sweeps along with brilliant writing this is for you. Trollope wrote this in 100 chapters, which were published … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Jason Matthews~ Red Sparrow

Posted on April 10, 2018 by

Fortunately I saw the film first. I rated the film as excellent but the book is far better. Matthews must have been paid an awful lot of money for film rights as there are significant U turns in both the … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Vince Hilaire (and Tom Maslona) ~ Vince: The autobiography of Vince Hilaire

Posted on April 3, 2018 by

He was an outstanding athlete excelling in cricket where he played at Essex Schoolboy level, which was dominated by those that were being privately educated (it still is). A black working-class boy from east London was as rare as hens … Continue reading →

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