Category Archives: Literature

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

Posted on April 24, 2018 by odeboyz

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 →

Posted in Finance, Literature | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted on April 17, 2018 by odeboyz

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 →

Posted in Finance, Literature | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Reviews: Jason Matthews~ Red Sparrow and Palace of Treason

Posted on April 10, 2018 by odeboyz

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 →

Posted in Literature, War | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted on April 3, 2018 by odeboyz

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 →

Posted in Literature, Review, School, Sport | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review : Paul Murray ~ The Mark and the Void

Posted on March 20, 2018 by odeboyz

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 →

Posted in Economics, Literature, Review | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: George MacDonald Fraser ~ Flashman at the Charge

Posted on February 27, 2018 by odeboyz

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 →

Posted in History, Literature, Review | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted on February 13, 2018 by odeboyz

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 →

Posted in History, Literature, Review | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted on January 30, 2018 by odeboyz

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 →

Posted in Literature, Review | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Iris Origo ~ War in Val d’Orcia: an Italian War Diary 1943-4

Posted on January 16, 2018 by odeboyz

Iris Origo was a wealthy American who married an Italian aristocrat in 1923. They bought nearly 9000 acres in the Val d’Orcia and began a 20th century version of a feudal relationship with their 57 farms. When war came she … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Review, War | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Book review: Lee Child ~ The Affair

Posted on January 2, 2018 by odeboyz

I don’t much like Lee Child’s Reacher series, which epitomise treadmill routine writing. This is the 16th Reacher novel and is a prequel. The story has Reacher becoming a loner solving problems using extreme violence. Child appears to have taken … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Review | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment