Having just read 'The Sparsholt Affair' (Alan Hollinghurst) for our last book group gathering, following up with this really underlines the influence Having just read 'The Sparsholt Affair' (Alan Hollinghurst) for our last book group gathering, following up with this really underlines the influence of Jane Austen on British novels. It details the behaviour, thinking and milieu of upper middle class/middle class English people in the context of a residential hotel on London's noisy, ugly Cromwell Road which is in effect the antechamber to Death. It does a good job of humanising old people who are not particularly benign or warm, just regular people with regular people's prejudices, anxieties, hopes and longings....more
A fun subject with plenty of interesting nuggets but longer than it needs to be, could be two-thirds of the length. Walker nails the ebb and flow of mA fun subject with plenty of interesting nuggets but longer than it needs to be, could be two-thirds of the length. Walker nails the ebb and flow of music power pretty accurately as it rises in LA and crashes back down with the advent of Punk (London) and Disco (New York). Interesting to see the impact of British music and musicians on this scene 6,000 miles away. ...more
Although the text covers the ground pretty well the book is a bit of a pain in its design - photos with no captions and not sitting on the relevant paAlthough the text covers the ground pretty well the book is a bit of a pain in its design - photos with no captions and not sitting on the relevant pages (ie a bit random at times), whole pages taken up by quotes from the text so you end up reading the same bit twice - luckily we seem to be moving into an age of better designed and more beautifully made books...more
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