Isherwood’s story set in Berlin at the end of the Weimar Republic is a fictitious account drawing on his own time there and featuring characters based on real people. It is entertaining and amusing, but don’t expect to be shocked … Continue reading →
Having admired and enjoyed Pears’ ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost‘ and ‘Stone’s Fall‘ I came across ‘The Portrait’ by chance when I was looking for his ‘The Dream of Scipio’ in my local library catalogue. But while ‘Fingerpost’ and ‘Stone’ … Continue reading →
A classic I should have read long ago. It bounces up and down along the surface – entertaining, amusing. Then with the introduction of Bernhard Landauer you find you’re slithering and bumping down the crumbling cliff until you end up … Continue reading →
It’s just over ten years ago that I first read a full-length novel by Dave Hutchinson. It was the first in his ‘Fractured Europe’ series, and I’ve been a fan ever since: ‘The Essence’ is now the ninth I have … Continue reading →
Set in the time of the Great Depression in 1930s America this book tells the story of the Dunne family and their neighbours. They, like many others, had been tempted to move west to farm in Oklahoma only to struggle … Continue reading →
The story is set in Iceland but could have been set anywhere – only the names of the characters and places show the connection. The book feels like it was written to be adapted for a TV series. It gets … Continue reading →
These are the first two books of Pullman’s second trilogy about Lyra, the mysterious substance called ‘Dust’ and the attempts of the powerful and sinister Magisterium to suppress all knowledge of it. The third book hasn’t yet been published. The … Continue reading →
After I found the second book in this series a bit disappointing (see ‘Dead Lions’) I was slow getting round to reading the next ones. Happily, ‘Real Tigers’ and then ‘Spook Street’ lived up to the promise of the original … Continue reading →
Horowitz has written several books continuing the work of famous authors, notably Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes and Ian Fleming/James Bond. I read one of his Holmes books, ‘House of Silk’, and enjoyed it. This one, a Bond story, not so much. … Continue reading →
This meticulously researched spoof of the diary of a late seventeenth-century student in Oxford who kept a dodo in his room will be specially enjoyed by anyone who knows something about the culture that makes Oxford what it was then … Continue reading →