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Book reviews

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

7th February 2018 By Mark Jolly

It’s a wonderful if sadly too rare feeling you get when you read the first sentence of a book and you know immediately you are going to love it. It’s like meeting an old friend and you suddenly remember how well you got on, especially in comparison to the fools you have been socialising with lately.

Such it was with Testament of Youth. There’s not a whole load I can say that has not already been said, other than it’s a fantastic book — but I’ll say it anyway.

The wonderful thing about being a human being is that we all have different views on everything, and not everyone loves Testament of Youth.  [Read more…] about Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: Book reviews, Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain, World War One

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (and other similar fluff)

11th October 2017 By Mark Jolly

Despite my high-blown literary pretensions I will from time to time put down the Proust and the Dostoyevski and read a trashy page-turner, usually after a series of what I hoped would be classic, classy reads reveal themselves to be a pile of tush.

So after starting and abandoning Stendahl’s The Charterhouse of Parma and The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, I felt in need of light relief. [Read more…] about Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (and other similar fluff)

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: Book reviews, Eleanor Catton, Gillian Flynn, Gone GIrl, Stendahl, The Charterhouse of Parma, The Luminaries

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