Book Reviews

Well this is a strange one indeed. A big majority (55%) of readers on Goodreads gave this five stars, and even though only 1% said they hated it, that is still 1,676 people and they cannot all be wrong. (Okay, they could be.)

I generally fall in with the 1,676. They point out the almost complete lack of characterisation, the plot that is not really a plot, and the lack of that dreadfully bourgeois and boring thing: the whole miserable mess making some sort of sense.

Oh yes, I forgot, among other things, it is a comic novel, almost all of which I find completely unfunny.   [Read more…] about The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Obviously, it’s me.

I thought this was absolutely dreadful. Not just the worst book I have ever read, although there are a few candidates for that, but I can’t see how anyone can actually think it’s a novel at all, let alone a good one.

It gets three and bit stars on Goodreads, so some people obviously like it, but reading their reviews didn’t help me much. One said, presumably as a compliment, that Ballard didn’t waste time developing three-dimensional characters. [Read more…] about Millennium People by JG Ballard

I am not impressed by books that win prizes and I’d like to think Joseph Pulitzer, Alfred Nobel and Mr Booker would agree with me. When these awards started, I’m sure they the founders had the best of intentions: to recognise and reward the best books and writers.

But it soon got perverted into something else. Today, books are not written with the sole intention of being good. They are written with a thought to impressing book-prize judges. Themes and styles are chosen accordingly. What’s the latest politically correct subject? Read all about it in the latest award-winning novel. [Read more…] about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz, and A Visit from The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

The question you must ask yourself before choosing a book about Nazi Germany is: Out of all those available, why should I choose this one?

A search on Amazon of those two words, Nazi Germany, comes back with 6,573 results.

The answer is that Richard Evans’s three-volume History of the Third Reich is extremely well written. He goes into incredible detail and explains some complex ideas, but never does so in anything other than a very readable way. [Read more…] about History of the Third Reich by Richard J Evans

I take the view that if you are going to read a book, you may as well read the best. You are not going to be able to read all the books in the world in your life, so try to stick to the ones worth reading.

They don’t call them classics for nothing.

The reason I hadn’t read Middlemarch, or anything by George Eliot before, is summed up in its subtitle: ‘A Study in Provincial Life’. An ancient Victorian novel set in the Midlands in which the themes include the Great Reform Act of 1832, unhappy marriages and complicated inheritances? It’s not going to knock ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ off the best-sellers’ list, is it?

[Read more…] about Middemarch

People either love or hate this book, which is not such a bad thing for an author because it’s not about how many like it, it’s about having a few who think it’s the best thing ever.

If only a small percentage of the six billion of the people on the planet absolutely love your book, that’s good enough. They’ll make sure word gets around. [Read more…] about A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole