en-US Wed, 05 Feb 2025 14:06:08 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 16070441 821 Fyodor Dostoevsky W 0 currently-reading 4.60 1880
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: W
average rating: 4.60
book published: 1880
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 29995931
Faced with the maddening frustrations of modern urban life, Edgar Bapty is a seething cauldron of resentment. Yet his scathing letters of complaint never get written, let alone sent - and his devastatingly cutting comments bounce around his middle-aged brain without being uttered. To the outside world he is a nondescript, rather unctuous little man. Inside, however, Edgar Bapty is perpetually exploding with rage - his thoughts are like non-stop machine-gun bullets of incoherent fury.

Does Edgar Bapty sound familiar?

Thinks is a masterpiece of our time, a brilliant tragi-comedy which tells it like it is for millions of people trapped in the urban rat-race of Britain today.



Front cover illustration by Bill Kimpton]]> 208 Keith Waterhouse 0586066519 W 3 3.00 1986
author: Keith Waterhouse
name: W
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
review:
Very unusual. Puts you in a weird liminal space for reading stream of consciousness and voyeuristic oddness. Not Waterhouse's best but as something experimental I appreciate the attempt to add it to the body of work.
]]> 28227190
Reading a ghost story on Christmas Eve was once as much a part of traditional Christmas Celebrations as turkey, eggnog and Santa Claus.

First published in 1866 for a special Christmas issue of ALL THE YEAR ROUND, Charles Dickens' THE SIGNALMAN has since fallen into obscurity. An eerie story of isolation, dread and supernatural visitation, this book is a small treasure, meant to be read aloud on a cold, dark winter night.]]> 51 Charles Dickens 1771960647 W 5
For such a short story the characters are as fleshed out as they need be and feel real without the lack of depth being a concern.

This Darles Chickens fellow has a bright future.]]> 3.78 1866
author: Charles Dickens
name: W
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1866
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves:
review:
Really enjoyable and delightfully I didn't predict the course of the narrative correctly.

For such a short story the characters are as fleshed out as they need be and feel real without the lack of depth being a concern.

This Darles Chickens fellow has a bright future.
]]> 6561106 704 Nicola Chalton 1842055135 W 0 to-read 3.43 2004
author: Nicola Chalton
name: W
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 1209234
In the story of who they are and what they become, Stan Barstow has drawn a picture of a search for identity that is all too recognizable even today.]]> 256 Stan Barstow 0552991848 W 0 to-read 4.21
author: Stan Barstow
name: W
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3121132 320 Alan Sillitoe 0333029046 W 0 to-read 3.73 1965
author: Alan Sillitoe
name: W
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 90192 225 Nathaniel Hawthorne 0393924769 W 0 to-read 3.46 1851
author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
name: W
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1851
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37415 238 Zora Neale Hurston 0061120065 W 0 to-read 3.98 1937
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: W
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2856518 384 David Storey 0099274078 W 0 to-read 3.19 1963
author: David Storey
name: W
average rating: 3.19
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 12383443 Ulysses

It is 1971, and Zachary Busner is a maverick psychiatrist who has just begun working at a mental hospital in suburban north London. As he tours the hospital’s wards, Busner notes that some of the patients are exhibiting a very peculiar type of physical tic: rapid, precise movements that they repeat over and over. These patients do not react to outside stimuli and are trapped inside an internal world. The patient that most draws Busner’s interest is a certain Audrey Dearth, an elderly woman born in the slums of West London in 1890, who is completely withdrawn and catatonically tics with her hands, turning handles and spinning wheels in the air. Busner’s investigations into the condition of Audrey and the other patients alternate with sections told from Audrey’s point of view, a stream of memories of a bustling bygone Edwardian London where horse-drawn carts roamed the streets. In internal monologue, Audrey recounts her childhood, her work as a clerk in an umbrella shop, her time as a factory munitionette during World War I, and the very different fates of her two brothers. Busner’s attempts to break through to Audrey and the other patients lead to unexpected results, and, in Audrey’s case, discoveries about her family’s role in her illness that are shocking and tragic.]]> 397 Will Self 1408820145 W 0 to-read 3.16 2012
author: Will Self
name: W
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 24874308 50 Honoré de Balzac 014139742X W 5 3.50 1836
author: Honoré de Balzac
name: W
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1836
rating: 5
read at: 2017/08/02
date added: 2024/11/04
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]]> 20626189 The third book in Robert Kirkman's New York Times bestselling series: The Walking Dead: The Fall of the Governor �� Part One!

The Walking Dead original novel series, set in the universe of Robert Kirkman's iconic comic book, continues with The Fall of the Governor �� Part One. From co-authors Kirkman, creator of the Eisner Award-winning comic as well as executive producer of AMC's blockbuster TV series, and Jay Bonansinga, Stoker Award-finalist and internationally acclaimed author, comes the gripping third novel in this richly woven, page-turning literary saga, which began with The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor.

In Rise of the Governor, uber-villain Philip Blake journeyed from his humble beginnings directly into the dark heart of the zombie apocalypse, and became the self-proclaimed leader of a small town called Woodbury. In The Road to Woodbury, an innocent traveler named Lilly Caul wound up in the terrifying thrall of Phillip Blake’s twisted, violent dictatorship within Woodbury’s ever tightening barricades.

And now, in The Fall of the Governor �� Part One, the Governor’s descent into madness finally erupts in a tour de force of action and horror. Beloved characters from the comic book, including Rick, Michonne and Glenn, finally make their entrance onto this nightmarish stage, and fans of The Walking Dead will see these characters in a whole new light. Simmering grudges boil over into unthinkable confrontations, battle lines are drawn, and unexpected twists seal the fates of the innocent and guilty alike.]]> 245 Robert Kirkman 0330541382 W 3 3.68
author: Robert Kirkman
name: W
average rating: 3.68
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2014/11/25
date added: 2024/11/04
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It was okay. The first half lagged but then picked up pace and narrative improved.
]]> 11734301 An alternate cover edition of this ISBN can be found here.

HBO's hit series A GAME OF THRONES is based on George R R Martin's internationally bestselling series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age. A STORM OF SWORDS: STEEL AND SNOW is the FIRST part of the third volume in the series. Winter approaches Westeros like an angry beast. The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud. In the northern wastes, a horde of hungry, savage people steeped in the dark magic of the wilderness is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears his new-forged crown. And Robb's defences are ranged against the South, the land of the cunning and cruel Lannisters, who have his younger sisters in their power. Throughout Westeros, the war for the Iron Throne rages more fiercely than ever, but if the Wall is breached, no king will live to claim it.]]> 623 George R.R. Martin W 5 4.41 2000
author: George R.R. Martin
name: W
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2013/08/17
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves:
review:
Way better than book two! better paced and with greater depth to the characters.
]]> 4200 White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.]]> 542 Zadie Smith 0140276335 W 0 to-read 3.75 2000
author: Zadie Smith
name: W
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 3106969 192 Keith Waterhouse 0582233755 W 5 4.17 1968
author: Keith Waterhouse
name: W
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1968
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/16
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves:
review:
Exceptionally good. A really great exploration of childhood and childhood understanding.
]]> 11539233
A STORM OF SWORDS: BLOOD AND GOLD is the SECOND part of the third volume in the series.

‘Colossal, staggering . . . one of the greats�� SFX

The Starks are scattered.

Robb Stark may be King in the North, but he must bend to the will of the old tyrant Walder Frey if he is to hold his crown. And while his youngest sister, Arya, has escaped the clutches of the depraved Cersei Lannister and her son, the capricious boy-king Joffrey, Sansa Stark remains their captive.

Meanwhile, across the ocean, Daenerys Stormborn, the last heir of the Dragon King, delivers death to the slave-trading cities of Astapor and Yunkai as she approaches Westeros with vengeance in her heart.]]> 607 George R.R. Martin W 5 Better and better. 4.59 2000
author: George R.R. Martin
name: W
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2013/08/26
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves:
review:
Better and better.
]]> 1654331 296 Stan Barstow 0552991864 W 4 4.30 1960
author: Stan Barstow
name: W
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1960
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 1536712 176 Anita Brookner 0586055053 W 4 4.04 1981
author: Anita Brookner
name: W
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 9888 157 Truman Capote 0140274111 W 4 3.72 1958
author: Truman Capote
name: W
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1958
rating: 4
read at: 2018/05/30
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 13554509
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Virgin and the Gypsy by D.H. Lawrence
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Gigi by Collette]]> 408 Henry James W 0 to-read 3.86 1998
author: Henry James
name: W
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60758182
Cover designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.]]> 202 Sylvia Townsend Warner 0241573785 W 3
Lolly Willowes is just weird to me and I found it hard to relate to her.]]> 3.72 1926
author: Sylvia Townsend Warner
name: W
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1926
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/14
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves:
review:
The first two parts are a good class and feminist story, the last part is a mess of too much certainty and assumption shared as fact.

Lolly Willowes is just weird to me and I found it hard to relate to her.
]]> 13337715
Tyrion Lannister, having killed his father, and wrongfully accused of killing his nephew, King Joffrey, has escaped from King’s Landing with a price on his head.

To the north lies the great Wall of ice and stone �� a structure only as strong as those guarding it. Eddard Stark's bastard son Jon Snow has been elected 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. But Jon has enemies both inside and beyond the Wall.

And in the east Daenerys Targaryen struggles to hold a city built on dreams and dust.]]> 690 George R.R. Martin W 5 4.33 2011
author: George R.R. Martin
name: W
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2013/12/01
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
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]]> 24874296 55 Anton Chekhov 0141397098 W 5 3.66 1898
author: Anton Chekhov
name: W
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1898
rating: 5
read at: 2017/07/25
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves:
review:
'Gooseberries' itself, third story in this prose-triptych, is sensational.
]]> 5308
A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man’s nature, greed, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.]]> 96 John Steinbeck 0142000698 W 4 3.52 1947
author: John Steinbeck
name: W
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1947
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/28
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves:
review:
This was an incredible novella. The tempo of the story carries with it that briskness and sturdiness which gives you everything you need to know about certain characters without stagnating or dwelling. The ending seemed a bit predictable but I suppose that that is also the point. It's a story of inevitability.
]]> 2361457 672 James Joyce 0140181067 W 3 3.62 1922
author: James Joyce
name: W
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1922
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/22
date added: 2024/07/22
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]]> 40629280
The lives of a reclusive young man obsessed with a conspiracy in the city's trash, and a washed up Catholic Priest arriving in a small town full of dark secrets become dangerously intertwined around the mysterious legend of The Black Barn -- an otherworldly building that is alleged to have appeared in both the city and the small town, throughout history, leaving death and madness in its wake.

Collects GIDEON FALLS #7-11]]> 136 Jeff Lemire 1534310673 W 5 4.27 2019
author: Jeff Lemire
name: W
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves:
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]]> 201345 376 Brian Jacques 0441001866 W 5 4.16 1993
author: Brian Jacques
name: W
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 1218364 88 William Trevor 0146000463 W 5 Fantastic trio of stories. 3.94 1995
author: William Trevor
name: W
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/30
date added: 2024/05/30
shelves:
review:
Fantastic trio of stories.
]]> 7615950 74 R.T. Jones 0713164670 W 5 3.33 1986
author: R.T. Jones
name: W
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves:
review:
Excellent book on introducing fundamental principles and modes of understanding poetry.
]]> 18597575 24 Hope Mirrlees W 3 3.88 1919
author: Hope Mirrlees
name: W
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1919
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/17
date added: 2024/05/21
shelves:
review:
It must be good. I don't know what happened.
]]> 44543612 In his search for a compromising photograph, lost or stolen, which is also a search for something in himself that will lead him back to his wife, he falls into one predicament after another, brutal, bizarre and sometimes sheer custard pie knockabout.
Larry is his own worst self always, and knows it. In this at least he reflects the hypocritical honesty of his generation: his lonely persistence in failure make even callousness and cowardice seem the obverse of the good qualities he disowns and leaves us with hope for his future.]]> 294 Thomas Hinde W 4 4.33 1957
author: Thomas Hinde
name: W
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/20
date added: 2024/05/20
shelves:
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]]> 493368 distinct voice. The poems here are extraordinarily intensely musical, strewn with emotion, and full of energy and warmth. Influenced by Gerard Manley Hopkins and George Herbert, they speak passionately of nature and love. They have a religious sense of mystery, and try to express the
intangible in marvellously vivid language. The second part of the book features an entertaining long poem titled The Men of Gotham , a comical folk-legend about the three men who went to sea to try to catch the moon in a net. Taken together, this is a wonderful first collection by an exceptionally
talented young poet.]]> 64 Alice Oswald 0192825135 W 3 Hmm, just Hmm.... 4.03 1996
author: Alice Oswald
name: W
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/08
date added: 2024/05/08
shelves:
review:
Hmm, just Hmm....
]]> 1131795 To Let is the final volume of the first Forsyte trilogy and chronicles the continuing feuds of the two factions within the troubled Forsyte family. However, the shadow of past miseries returns to haunt the lives of a new generation of Forsytes as Irene's son Jon falls in love with Soames' daughter Fleur with tragic consequences.]]> 211 John Galsworthy 1853262269 W 5 4.24 1921
author: John Galsworthy
name: W
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1921
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/06
date added: 2024/05/06
shelves:
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]]> 92080 906 John Galsworthy 0141184183 W 5 4.14 1921
author: John Galsworthy
name: W
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1921
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/06
date added: 2024/05/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 14336603 64 John Galsworthy 1409785041 W 3 3.83 1920
author: John Galsworthy
name: W
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1920
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/27
date added: 2024/04/27
shelves:
review:
Hmm, disappointing in contrast to Indian Summer as interludes go in this book. Jon comes across odious and cosseted.
]]> 6383607 In Chancery (1920) is the second volume of the first of the three Forsyte trilogies. It takes up the story from The Man of Property and records the feud between Soames and his cousin 'Young' Jolyon. The personal dramas of the Forsytes take place against the backdrop of the Boer War in South Africa and the threat it poses to the international prosperity and stability so essential for the continuence of the family's materially comfortable, if at times turbulent, lives.]]> 229 John Galsworthy 1853262226 W 4 4.25 1920
author: John Galsworthy
name: W
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1920
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/26
date added: 2024/04/26
shelves:
review:
Excellent story yet again, this only falls short because of the first book and first interlude.
]]> 748318
John Galsworthy tackles his theme of the demise of the upper-middle classes with irony and compassion.]]> 364 John Galsworthy 185326217X W 5 4.02 1906
author: John Galsworthy
name: W
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1906
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/20
date added: 2024/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 9763867 92 Philip Larkin 0571258107 W 5 4.05 2003
author: Philip Larkin
name: W
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/30
date added: 2024/03/17
shelves:
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]]> 261676
Contains The Mating Season, Ring for Jeeves and Very Good, Jeeves.]]> 574 P.G. Wodehouse 009174833X W 0 to-read 4.47 1991
author: P.G. Wodehouse
name: W
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61141444 "Written with great spirit . . . very funny . . . fresh, unhackneyed and excellently observed." - "Listener"
"[A] bustling kaleidoscope of a book, by an author fertile in expedient, keenly observant and occasionally probing the heart of darkness." - "Sunday Times"
Charles Lumley feels that he has been born in captivity - the captivity of his smugly conventional bourgeois upbringing. Now he has just graduated from university, only to make the discouraging discovery that his education has rendered him unfit for any kind of useful employment. Wondering what to do with the rest of his life and longing to escape, a chance remark overheard in a pub sets him off on a picaresque and hilarious tour of 1950s Britain. He undergoes a string of comic misadventures as he works as a window cleaner, a drug trafficker, a hospital orderly, and a chauffeur, all while trying to find his place in the world and win the love of the beautiful Veronica Roderick.
John Wain (1925-1994) was one of the great English men of letters of the 20th century, a prolific novelist, poet, biographer, and critic whose many accolades included the Somerset Maugham Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Whitbread Award. "Hurry on Down" (1953), his first novel, ushered in a new kind of English novel and paved the way for many later classics, including Kingsley Amis's "Lucky Jim" (1954) and John Braine's "Room at the Top" (1957). This 60th anniversary edition includes an introduction by Nick Bentley and marks the novel's first republication in the United States in more than half a century.]]> 252 John Wain W 4 3.00 1960
author: John Wain
name: W
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1960
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/19
date added: 2024/02/19
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]]> 40534006
Nathaniel Chanticleer is a somewhat dreamy, slightly melancholy man, not one for making waves, who is deliberately ignoring a vital part of his own past; a secret he refuses even to acknowledge. But with the disappearance of his own daughter, and a long-overdue desire to protect his young son, he realises that something is changing in Lud �� and something must be done.

Lud-in-the-Mist is a true classic, an adult fairy tale exploring the need to embrace what we fear and to come to terms with 'the shadows' �� those sweet and dark impulses that our public selves ignore or repress.]]> 264 Hope Mirrlees 1473225566 W 5 3.85 1926
author: Hope Mirrlees
name: W
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1926
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/02
date added: 2024/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 677966 143 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn W 5 3.87 1962
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: W
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2017/12/17
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves:
review:
Wonderful. Gulag life...makes my own life a lot less complaint worthy.
]]> 160014
The classic novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization's enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.

Bradbury's powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a classic of twentieth-century literature which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.]]> 172 Ray Bradbury W 5 It had that element of Newspeak from Orwell where the frame of reference is nearly alien and childlike as they lack the ability to articulate themselves and that which surrounds them.
The dislodged and jarring motif was beautifully played out as the characters struggle with prose and verse in a world of instant debased gratification and overdosed asinine anticulture.]]> 3.88 1953
author: Ray Bradbury
name: W
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1953
rating: 5
read at: 2015/02/06
date added: 2024/01/14
shelves:
review:
It took a little time to acquaint myself with the style.
It had that element of Newspeak from Orwell where the frame of reference is nearly alien and childlike as they lack the ability to articulate themselves and that which surrounds them.
The dislodged and jarring motif was beautifully played out as the characters struggle with prose and verse in a world of instant debased gratification and overdosed asinine anticulture.
]]> 233437 ���ձ�> 174 Alan Sillitoe 0586092412 W 5 4.08 1959
author: Alan Sillitoe
name: W
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1959
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/03
date added: 2024/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 22438792 ]]> 191 William Golding W 4 3.25 1984
author: William Golding
name: W
average rating: 3.25
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/22
date added: 2023/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 179684 281 Lorna Sage 0060938080 W 3 A memoir of others. 3.64 2000
author: Lorna Sage
name: W
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/12
date added: 2023/12/12
shelves:
review:
A memoir of others.
]]> 57809127 When we go through something impossible, someone, or something, will help us, if we let them . . .
It is October 1966 and William Lavery is having the night of his life at his first black-tie do. But, as the evening unfolds, news hits of a landslide at a coal mine. It has buried a school: Aberfan.

William decides he must act, so he stands and volunteers to attend. It will be his first job as an embalmer, and it will be one he never forgets.

His work that night will force him to think about the little boy he was, and the losses he has worked so hard to forget. But compassion can have surprising consequences, because - as William discovers - giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves.]]> 400 Jo Browning Wroe 0571368298 W 4 4.17 2022
author: Jo Browning Wroe
name: W
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/10
date added: 2023/11/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 459238 272 David Storey 009928376X W 0 to-read 3.33 1984
author: David Storey
name: W
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11324 Jake Donaghue, garrulous artist, meets Hugo Belfounder, silent philosopher.

Jake, hack writer and sponger, now penniless flat-hunter, seeks out an old girlfriend, Anna Quentin, and her glamorous actress sister, Sadie. He resumes acquaintance with formidable Hugo, whose ‘philosophy�� he once presumptuously dared to interpret. These meetings involve Jake and his eccentric servant-companion, Finn, in a series of adventures that include the kidnapping of a film-star dog, and a political riot in a film-set of ancient Rome. Jake, fascinated, longs to learn Hugo’s secret. Perhaps Hugo’s secret is Hugo himself? Admonished, enlightened, Jake hopes at last to become a real writer.]]> 252 Iris Murdoch 0140014454 W 0 to-read 3.78 1954
author: Iris Murdoch
name: W
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 111890
"Jill is, in a sense, a kind of cryptic manifesto. It is a novel about writing, about discovering a literary personality, and about the sorts of consolation that art can provide." -Andrew Motion]]> 230 Philip Larkin W 0 to-read 3.56 1946
author: Philip Larkin
name: W
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 111895 704 Philip Larkin 0198121377 W 0 to-read 3.97 1972
author: Philip Larkin
name: W
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2429806 192 Anita Brookner 0586060715 W 0 to-read 3.80 1983
author: Anita Brookner
name: W
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 67880 Librarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.

The Outsider is the seminal work on alienation, creativity and the modern mind-set. First published over forty years ago, it made its youthful author England's most controversial intellectual. The Outsider is an individual engaged in an intense self-exploration—a person who lives at the edge, challenges cultural values and "stands for Truth." Born into a world without perspective, where others simply drift thru life, the Outsider creates his own set of rules and lives them in an unsympathetic environment. The relative handful of people who fulfilled Wilson's definition of the Outsider in the 1950s have now become a significant social force, making Wilson's vision more relevant today than ever. Through the works the lives of various artists—including Kafka, Camus, Eliot, Hemingway, Hesse, Lawrence, Van Gogh, Nijinsky, Shaw, Blake, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky—Wilson explores the psyche of the Outsider, his effect on society and society's effect on him. Wilson illuminates the struggle of those who seek not only the transformation of Self but also the transformation of society as a whole. The book is essential for everyone who shares his conviction that "a new religion is needed".]]> 320 Colin Wilson 0753814323 W 0 to-read 4.12 1956
author: Colin Wilson
name: W
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123296656 37 Herman Melville W 0 to-read 3.00
author: Herman Melville
name: W
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56587415 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's timeless tale, reissued in a beautiful clothbound edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his plane vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission. Nearly eighty years later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power.

The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. "In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey," the narrator recalls. "Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket." And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator's imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions.]]> 118 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0241508665 W 5 4.33 1943
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: W
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1943
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/23
date added: 2023/10/23
shelves:
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]]> 617373 Older cover editions with this ISBN can be found here and here.

The death and burial of Addie Bundren is told by members of her family, as they cart the coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury her among her people. And as the intense desires, fears and rivalries of the family are revealed in the vernacular of the Deep South, Faulkner presents a portrait of extraordinary power - as epic as the Old Testament, as American as Huckleberry Finn.]]> 240 William Faulkner 0099479311 W 3 3.62 1930
author: William Faulkner
name: W
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1930
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/05
date added: 2023/10/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 45046567
Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 398 T.J. Klune 1250217288 W 2
"...Morality is relative. Just because you find something abhorrent, doesn't mean it is."

I can see the underlying intention of this book but it's written by someone too close to what they're thinking to follow to the end of conclusions they set in motion.

Morality is not relative. It's absolute - you decided that by creating a character proving the existence of the Devil, and therefore God. You can be as idealistic as you like but you can't invoke an absolute standard and then say no to it. It's just lazy and very poor storytelling. So much of this book was predictable and thin.

Of course they fell in love - Arthur's pants are a bit short. Too much of this was fluff being dressed up as real feelings and vast leaps of (irony) faith. This is another YA I've read this year and it's a shame there's such a paucity in the storytelling style and the plot.]]> 4.42 2020
author: T.J. Klune
name: W
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2023/08/31
date added: 2023/08/31
shelves:
review:
SPOILERS AHEAD

"...Morality is relative. Just because you find something abhorrent, doesn't mean it is."

I can see the underlying intention of this book but it's written by someone too close to what they're thinking to follow to the end of conclusions they set in motion.

Morality is not relative. It's absolute - you decided that by creating a character proving the existence of the Devil, and therefore God. You can be as idealistic as you like but you can't invoke an absolute standard and then say no to it. It's just lazy and very poor storytelling. So much of this book was predictable and thin.

Of course they fell in love - Arthur's pants are a bit short. Too much of this was fluff being dressed up as real feelings and vast leaps of (irony) faith. This is another YA I've read this year and it's a shame there's such a paucity in the storytelling style and the plot.
]]> 8204673 Nathaniel Hawthorne W 3 3.20 2005
author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
name: W
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/18
date added: 2023/08/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 14292372 50 William Austin 140993053X W 5 3.58 1924
author: William Austin
name: W
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1924
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/14
date added: 2023/08/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 462182 61 Washington Irving 1883789400 W 5 3.60 1819
author: Washington Irving
name: W
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1819
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/11
date added: 2023/08/11
shelves:
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]]> 35900387 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

The only way to survive is to open your heart. ]]> 390 Gail Honeyman 0008172145 W 3
I also don't like the whole 'I don't care what the world thinks of me!' but actually does care, and also thinks a lot of negative things about other people, is really unappealing.

And the pacing seemed weird - ***SPOILER*** why did we skip such large chunks of time whilst Eleanor is signed off work? Could have been a really deep dive in internal psychology and character development rather than all this bitty and ill-paced hominem pseudo revelatory silliness.]]> 4.17 2017
author: Gail Honeyman
name: W
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/07
date added: 2023/08/07
shelves:
review:
I wasn't on board with Eleanor at all. The oddness seemed strained to a point of incredulity and the internal dialogue choices Vs what Eleanor would actually say to people didn't gel properly.

I also don't like the whole 'I don't care what the world thinks of me!' but actually does care, and also thinks a lot of negative things about other people, is really unappealing.

And the pacing seemed weird - ***SPOILER*** why did we skip such large chunks of time whilst Eleanor is signed off work? Could have been a really deep dive in internal psychology and character development rather than all this bitty and ill-paced hominem pseudo revelatory silliness.
]]> 125321
Barchester Towers is one of the best-loved novels in Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire series, which captured nineteenth-century provincial England with wit, worldly wisdom and an unparalleled gift for characterization. It is the second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire.]]> 418 Anthony Trollope 1406923044 W 0 to-read 4.03 1857
author: Anthony Trollope
name: W
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1857
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 1189102 281 Ezra Pound 0571132138 W 0 to-read 4.00 1952
author: Ezra Pound
name: W
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2074957 845 Rudyard Kipling 0340011572 W 0 to-read 3.20 1940
author: Rudyard Kipling
name: W
average rating: 3.20
book published: 1940
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3401 33 Louis de Bernières 0952925052 W 5 3.99 1993
author: Louis de Bernières
name: W
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/08/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 20527635 209 Elizabeth Taylor W 0 to-read 4.09 1971
author: Elizabeth Taylor
name: W
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57091322 Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good--her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits--all the family has to live on--on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs. Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her--even her beloved Shuggie.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Édouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.]]> 480 Douglas Stuart 152901929X W 4 4.32 2020
author: Douglas Stuart
name: W
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/20
date added: 2023/07/20
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]]> 8605278 En attendant Godot was first performed at the Theatre de Babylone in Paris in 1953. It was translated into English by Samuel Beckett, and Waiting for Godot opened at the Arts Theatre in London in 1955.

'Go and see Waiting for Godot. At the worst you will discover a curiosity, a four-leaved clover, a black tulip; at the best something that will securely lodge in a corner of your mind for as long as you live.' Harold Hobson, 7 August 1955

'I told him that if by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot. This seemed to disappoint him greatly.' Samuel Beckett, 1955]]> 91 Samuel Beckett 0571244599 W 5 3.85 1952
author: Samuel Beckett
name: W
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/30
date added: 2023/06/30
shelves:
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I now feel very inclined that I need to watch this play. Reminded me of The Bedsitting Room for it's overlapping dialogue.
]]> 43746704
Beneath King Kong’s cultural significance, however, is a tense and surprisingly tender story. One cannot help but be frightened by Kong’s uncontrollable fury, be saddened over the giant’s capture, mistreatment, and exploitation by venal showmen, or sympathize with the beast’s ill-fated affection for the down-on-her-luck starlet Ann Darrow.

Featuring a new introduction by Jack Thorne.]]> 156 Delos W. Lovelace W 5
As good as if not better than the iterations of the film.]]> 3.78 1933
author: Delos W. Lovelace
name: W
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1933
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/29
date added: 2023/06/29
shelves:
review:
Fantastic from beginning to end. A real lesson in pacing from a novella which longer books could learn a real lesson from.

As good as if not better than the iterations of the film.
]]> 24874332
In this provocative and blackly funny essay, Thomas de Quincey considers murder in a purely aesthetic light and explains how practically every philosopher over the past two hundred years has been murdered - 'insomuch, that if a man calls himself a philosopher, and never had his life attempted, rest assured there is nothing in him'.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859).

Thomas de Quincey's Confessions and an English Opium-Eater and Other Writings is available in Penguin Classics.]]> 56 Thomas de Quincey 0141397888 W 5 3.07 1827
author: Thomas de Quincey
name: W
average rating: 3.07
book published: 1827
rating: 5
read at: 2015/11/21
date added: 2023/06/26
shelves:
review:
Quite splendid and unique. There was a wonderful Chestertonesque humour present.
]]> 15104 334 Joanne Harris 0552998001 W 3 3.73 2000
author: Joanne Harris
name: W
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/25
date added: 2023/06/25
shelves:
review:
Ended in a short space which is odd given its 400+ page count and a chapter count of 65. If this is part of a series then it might make sense but the end felt final. Enjoyed enough but felt like I'd exchange some of the Pog Hill chapters for more character development and also less from the perspective of a bottle of wine.
]]> 1898636 272 Keith Waterhouse 0586069429 W 4
It was filled with purposeful torpor if that makes sense. Waterhouse achieved the creation of a character who had the drive to be great at languor with the intention of MM playing to her strengths in a subworld of weaknesses.

What if you are better than your position in life but it's the life you're best suited for?]]> 4.15 1982
author: Keith Waterhouse
name: W
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/14
date added: 2023/06/14
shelves:
review:
Another very good outing from Waterhouse and keeping on theme with the Angry Young Men - felt grimier than previous books I've read from this group but this was very well done.

It was filled with purposeful torpor if that makes sense. Waterhouse achieved the creation of a character who had the drive to be great at languor with the intention of MM playing to her strengths in a subworld of weaknesses.

What if you are better than your position in life but it's the life you're best suited for?
]]> 158986 679 Wilkie Collins 1851527192 W 0 to-read 3.93 1994
author: Wilkie Collins
name: W
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17160669 222 George Grossmith W 5 3.89 1892
author: George Grossmith
name: W
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1892
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/06/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 21210182 240 David Storey 0140018433 W 5 3.40 1961
author: David Storey
name: W
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/30
date added: 2023/06/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 25334576
In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This self-described sentimental bird is attracted to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and physical pain of loss gives way to memories, this little unit of three begin to heal.

In this extraordinary debut - part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's compassion and bravura style combine to dazzling effect. Full of unexpected humour and profound emotional truth, Grief is the Thing with Feathers marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent.]]> 114 Max Porter 0571323766 W 5 3.85 2015
author: Max Porter
name: W
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/17
date added: 2023/06/03
shelves:
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]]> 28501523 195 Virginia Woolf 1784870862 W 5
I've heard in other places that Woolf can copy a style and do it well rather than it being an obvious fad or tawdry as an effort; that is true, whereas in the instance I read Orwell try it in A Clergyman's Daughter it felt ungenerous as a full effort. Orwell was clearly trying this thing call stream of consciousness and seemed to do it by numbers rather than embrace it. Not so with Woolf, it felt organic or was such a good version of a forgery it made it through for the real deal.

Maybe that is unfair. It is the real deal.

The characters were great. I'm going to do a full review video for it.]]> 3.79 1925
author: Virginia Woolf
name: W
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1925
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/30
date added: 2023/05/30
shelves:
review:
This was hard all the way through for me but I feel like it helped me grow as a reader.

I've heard in other places that Woolf can copy a style and do it well rather than it being an obvious fad or tawdry as an effort; that is true, whereas in the instance I read Orwell try it in A Clergyman's Daughter it felt ungenerous as a full effort. Orwell was clearly trying this thing call stream of consciousness and seemed to do it by numbers rather than embrace it. Not so with Woolf, it felt organic or was such a good version of a forgery it made it through for the real deal.

Maybe that is unfair. It is the real deal.

The characters were great. I'm going to do a full review video for it.
]]> 591790 Crime and Punishment, which explored the mind of a murderer, Dostoevsky produced another masterpiece, The Idiot. This time the author portrays a truly beautiful soul—a character he found difficult to bring to life because, as he wrote, "beauty is the ideal, and neither my country, nor civilized Europe, know what that ideal of beauty is.�� The result was one of Dostoevsky’s greatest characters—Prince Myshkin, a saintly, Christ-like, yet deeply human figure.

The story begins when Myshkin arrives on Russian soil after a stay in a Swiss sanatorium. Scorned by St. Petersburg society as an idiot for his generosity and innocence, the prince finds himself at the center of a struggle between a rich, kept woman and a beautiful, virtuous girl, who both hope to win his affection. Unfortunately, Myshkin’s very goodness seems to bring disaster to everyone he meets. The shocking denouement tragically reveals how, in a world obsessed with money, power, and sexual conquest, a sanatorium is the only place for a saint.���ձ�> 633 Fyodor Dostoevsky 1857152549 W 5 meh 4.21 1869
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: W
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1869
rating: 5
read at: 2017/02/28
date added: 2023/05/05
shelves:
review:
meh
]]> 18521 A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered nonfiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.]]> 112 Virginia Woolf W 0 to-read 4.22 1929
author: Virginia Woolf
name: W
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1929
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2284803 1536 Anonymous 0718015592 W 3 4.29
author: Anonymous
name: W
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 17458030
The Brangwens have been established for generations as a yeoman family on the borders of Nottinghamshire, among the coal-mines - a vigorous and strong-willed breed. When Tom Brangwen marries a Polish widow he discovers that love must come to terms with the other forces that make up a human personality.]]> 496 D.H. Lawrence W 0 to-read 3.58 1915
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: W
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61279991 “For someone damned to be forgettable, Addie LaRue is a most delightfully unforgettable character, and her story is the most joyous evocation of unlikely immortality.�� ―Neil Gaiman

A Sunday Times-bestselling, award-nominated genre-defying tour-de-force of Faustian bargains, for fans of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life, and The Sudden Appearance of Hope.

When Addie La Rue makes a pact with the devil, she is convinced she’s found a loophole―immortality in exchange for her soul. But the devil takes away her place in the world, cursing her to be forgotten by everyone.

Addie flees her tiny home town in 18th-Century France, beginning a journey that takes her across the world, learning to live a life where no one remembers her and everything she owns is lost and broken. Existing only as a muse for artists throughout history, she learns to fall in love anew every single day.

Her only companion on this journey is her dark devil with hypnotic green eyes, who visits her each year on the anniversary of their deal. Alone in the world, Addie has no choice but to confront him, to understand him, maybe to beat him.

Until one day, in a second hand bookshop in Manhattan, Addie meets someone who remembers her. Suddenly thrust back into a real, normal life, Addie realises she can’t escape her fate forever.]]> 541 Victoria E. Schwab 1789098750 W 2
I didn't feel any urgency that the writing tried to force in the flashback scenes as you know LaRue is fine in the 'present'.

The romance was exactly that emo heavy veneer of love which doesn't have any substance to it which seems to be the vibe of YA books.

I did not understand the skimming/skipping of historic moments Vs the inclusion of others. I inferred from the moments chosen/omitted Schwab's lack of confidence especially in dealing with key points in time.

All in all not good but not wholly terrible.]]> 4.22 2020
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: W
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2023/04/14
date added: 2023/04/14
shelves:
review:
Read for the book club I'm a part of. The writing is repetitive and very basic with the occasional flashy word thrown in (like Schwab never learned from Hemingway that "...thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.��).

I didn't feel any urgency that the writing tried to force in the flashback scenes as you know LaRue is fine in the 'present'.

The romance was exactly that emo heavy veneer of love which doesn't have any substance to it which seems to be the vibe of YA books.

I did not understand the skimming/skipping of historic moments Vs the inclusion of others. I inferred from the moments chosen/omitted Schwab's lack of confidence especially in dealing with key points in time.

All in all not good but not wholly terrible.
]]> 47163 3072 M.H. Abrams 0393925323 W 0 to-read 4.26 1962
author: M.H. Abrams
name: W
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 24874310
In this short story, Dostoyevsky masterfully depicts desperation, greed, manipulation and suicide.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881).

Dostoyevsky's works available in Penguin Classics are Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Double, The Gambler and Other Stories, The Grand Inquisitor, Notes From The Underground, Netochka Nezvanova, The House of The Dead, The Brothers Karamazov and The Village of Stepanchikovo.]]> 57 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0141397489 W 5 3.83 1876
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: W
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1876
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/02
date added: 2023/04/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 47164 The Norton Anthology of English Literature has been revitalized in this Eighth Edition through the collaboration between six new editors and six seasoned ones. Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.]]> 2904 M.H. Abrams 0393925315 W 0 to-read 4.24 1962
author: M.H. Abrams
name: W
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 713883 Book by MARTIN AMIS 206 Martin Amis 0099769018 W 3 3.16 1981
author: Martin Amis
name: W
average rating: 3.16
book published: 1981
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/30
date added: 2023/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 2634533 240 Keith Waterhouse 0552991171 W 5 3.82 1983
author: Keith Waterhouse
name: W
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/20
date added: 2023/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 42975172 The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death.

With The Testaments, the wait is over.

Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.

In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades.

"Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in." --Margaret Atwood

An alternate cover edition of ISBN 978-0385543781 can be found here.]]> 422 Margaret Atwood W 3 4.16 2019
author: Margaret Atwood
name: W
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/14
date added: 2023/03/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 18666372 The Old Devils, which turns its humane and ironic gaze on a group of Welsh married couples who have been spending their golden years—when “all of a sudden the evening starts starting after breakfast”—nattering, complaining, reminiscing, and, above all, drinking. This more or less orderly social world is thrown off-kilter, however, when two old friends unexpectedly return from England: Alun Weaver, now a celebrated man of Welsh letters, and his entrancing wife, Rhiannon. Long-dormant rivalries and romances are rudely awakened, as life at the Bible and Crown, the local pub, is changed irrevocably.

Considered by Martin Amis to be Kingsley Amis’s greatest achievement—a book that “stands comparison with any English novel of the [twentieth] century”��The Old Devils confronts the attrition of ageing with rare candor, sympathy, and moral intelligence.]]> 384 Kingsley Amis W 0 to-read 2.88 1986
author: Kingsley Amis
name: W
average rating: 2.88
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 111620 331 Evelyn Waugh W 5 Excellent. 3.95 1945
author: Evelyn Waugh
name: W
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1945
rating: 5
read at: 2013/12/10
date added: 2023/03/02
shelves:
review:
Excellent.
]]> 10117788 288 Patricia Highsmith 0140101179 W 3 I can't tell. 3.21 1964
author: Patricia Highsmith
name: W
average rating: 3.21
book published: 1964
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/01
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves:
review:
I can't tell.
]]> 8073255 A teacher oppressed by the futility of everyday life embarks on a dark affair in this extraordinary novel that won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

In his dreams, Colin Pasmore runs an endless race. No matter how hard he pumps his legs, he loses—and not just to other runners, but to every “dullard and idler�� in England. Every morning, he wakes up screaming in terror. His life should be joyful; he has a lovely wife, healthy children, and a comfortable job. But as he approaches thirty, Pasmore feels the walls closing in. He must find a way out before ordinary existence suffocates him.
��
In a desperate attempt to escape his routine, Pasmore rents a small room in London, intending to use it for an affair. But adultery does nothing to lessen his burden. As misery threatens to consume his soul, Pasmore will ask himself if any life—even a happy one—is worth living.
��
]]> 176 David Storey 0140040609 W 5 3.59 1972
author: David Storey
name: W
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1972
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/20
date added: 2023/02/20
shelves:
review:
I feel exhausted after reading this. Being a husband and father this story is terrifying. Incredibly well written and well paced.
]]> 17907287 Spire 272 William Golding 0571307825 W 5
For so small a word 'folly' is so encompassing in this story.

This is my third Golding and I shall return again for another no doubt.]]> 3.60 1964
author: William Golding
name: W
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1964
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/15
date added: 2023/02/15
shelves:
review:
A wild fervour grabs you whilst reading this.

For so small a word 'folly' is so encompassing in this story.

This is my third Golding and I shall return again for another no doubt.
]]> 22939472
���������� Once upon a time there was a king, and the king commissioned his favourite wizard to create a magic mirror. This mirror didn't show you your reflection. It showed you your soul--it showed you who you really were. The wizard couldn't look at it without turning away. The king couldn't look at it. The courtiers couldn't look at it. A chestful of treasure was offered to anyone who could look at it for 60 seconds without turning away. And no one could.
�������� The Zone of Interest is a love story with a violently unromantic setting. Can love survive the mirror? Can we even meet each other's eye, after we have seen who we really are? In a novel powered by both wit and pathos, Martin Amis excavates the depths and contradictions of the human soul.]]> 306 Martin Amis 0676977847 W 0 to-read 3.81 2014
author: Martin Amis
name: W
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 946333 Alternate cover edition of isbn10: 0140017321 / isbn13: 978-0-14-001732-8


UNDER THE VOLCANO, MALCOLM LOWRY.]]> 377 Malcolm Lowry W 0 to-read 3.52 1947
author: Malcolm Lowry
name: W
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1077288 Book by Dickens, Charles 808 Charles Dickens 0140621202 W 0 to-read 3.84 1853
author: Charles Dickens
name: W
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1853
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 820786 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781853262715.

Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density.

Tolstoy considered this book to be his first real attempt at a novel form, and it addresses the very nature of society at all levels - of destiny, death, human relationships and the irreconcilable contradictions of existence. It ends tragically, and there is much that evokes despair, yet set beside this is an abounding joy in life's many ephemeral pleasures, and a profusion of comic relief.]]> 848 Leo Tolstoy W 0 to-read 4.00 1878
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: W
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1878
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33396119
Library of Congress catalog card number: 61-8194.

No ISBN]]> 954 Margaret Mitchell W 0 to-read 4.67 1936
author: Margaret Mitchell
name: W
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1936
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34053 here.

Twelve stories about animals, insects, and other subjects include How the Camel Got His Hump. The Butterfly That Stamped, and How the Alphabet Was Made..]]> 210 Rudyard Kipling 0517266555 W 0 to-read 4.08 1902
author: Rudyard Kipling
name: W
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1902
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11026 Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel fathers and sons become opposed, apprenctices plot against their masters and anti-Catholic mobs rampage through the streets. And, as London erupts into riot, Barnaby Rudge struggles to escape the curse of his own past. With its dramatic descriptions of public violence and private horror, its strange secrets and ghostly doublings, Barnaby Rudge is a powerful, disturbing blend of historical realism and Gothic melodrama.]]> 744 Charles Dickens 0140437282 W 0 to-read 3.81 1841
author: Charles Dickens
name: W
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1841
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>