Category Archives: Literature

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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Book Review : Paul Murray ~ The Mark and the Void

Posted on March 20, 2018 by

Paul Murray has written a beautiful satire on the 2008 financial crash. He sets his book in Dublin, which was a ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy, which seemed to reinvent banking and economics. Another example of millenial insanity was Iceland, which has … Continue reading →

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Book Review: George MacDonald Fraser ~ Flashman at the Charge

Posted on February 27, 2018 by

The Flashman series is twelve books long. They were very popular in the 1970s but have faded with time. This review is therefore a review of a re-read. How does it stand up to the expectations of a former devotee? … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Boris Akunin ~ The Coronation (Translated by Andrew Bromfield)

Posted on February 13, 2018 by

Boris Akunin is Russia’s top-selling thriller writer. He writes historical mystery novels which are securely placed within a factual context. This one in his in Erast Fandorin series and is loosely in the Sherlock Holmes genre. It has wit, intelligence, … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Ayelet Gundar-Goshen ~ Waking Lions (Translated by Sondra Silverston)

Posted on January 30, 2018 by

Waking Lions is an Israeli novel which is very hard hitting. Israeli society isn’t normally thought of as racist but they too have an illegal immigrant ‘problem’. In this case it’s Africans and especially Eritreans who walk to Israel. Neurosurgeon … Continue reading →

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