Category Archives: Book review

(this review contains a minor plot spoiler) I got a great deal of entertainment out of the mid-Sixties English suburbia period detail. I don’t remember that time directly, and it is now long enough ago for the setting to seem … Continue reading →

Who hasn’t tried to write haiku? I last did it when contributions in this format were requested for our internal staff news, and I wrote one on the unlikely topic of a website launch. This little book consists mostly of … Continue reading →

I think this book must have sold in large numbers (the proceeds from sales went towards the Kathleen Ferrier memorial scholarships), because it is often to be found in second-hand shops. My copy was the 9th impression (published in July … Continue reading →

I think you might do better to read E.M. Forster if you want to know about upper middle class London life in the years leading up to the First World War. I also felt that she didn’t really know quite … Continue reading →

This must be the thinking person’s light summer reading for 2008. I took a copy on holiday and found another already there in the place we were staying! I was entertained by this and found the ending suddenly rather poignant, … Continue reading →

No spoiler! Read on as I won’t discuss the plot. I thought this was one of the better Wexford ones I’d read. My main reservation was that the characters of Joyce Virson and Augustine Casey – intended I think to … Continue reading →

A favourite of my 3 year old son. We have it in board and paperback versions, both published by Egmont. Note (especially if you once read this book as a child) that both are abridgements of the original, but the … Continue reading →

I still miss Bernard Levin’s articles; I wonder what he would have said about the Diana inquest, or the current US election campaign?  (Though the latter topic would be more his beloved Arianna’s territory).  I made do with reading ‘Conducted … Continue reading →

Chick-lit of a kind I wouldn’t usually read! I found the main character rather tiresome (though have children of similar ages so empathised a bit). I preferred the sub-plots involving Cressida and Freddie; but both wound up some time before … Continue reading →

I enjoyed this but not as much as the other contributors. It takes a while to get going, and I wish there had been more scenes set at the hotel and less of the earlier misery-memoir stuff from the farm. … Continue reading →