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Category Archives: Books
Light in August, by William Faulkner
I recently read Light in August, by William Faulkner. This was my second Faulkner book, and I found this a much easier and more enjoyable read than The Sound and the Fury. It’s largely set in 1930’s Mississippi, though the … Continue reading
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Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes
I mainly read Don Quixote because it’s on my list, which is compiled from other lists. One of the source lists (compiled by Norwegian book clubs) was compiled by polling 100 writers from 54 countries around the world. They declared … Continue reading
The Hobbit
I recently re-read The Hobbit; the last time I read it was at least two decades, if not three decades, ago. I really enjoyed it, partly due to the nostalgia of revisiting an old friend. It was much more clearly … Continue reading
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Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis
When I started reading this, I feared it was going to be terribly dated, and that for a comic novel I wouldn’t find it very funny. It’s about a young lecturer in an un-named redbrick university, coming to the end … Continue reading
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Book Review: Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
The executive summary of this review is: don’t read this book. The one paragraph review is: don’t read this book unless you really need to. For example, if you need to read this for your course, or because you’re determined … Continue reading
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Book review: Ulysses by James Joyce
I read Ulysses because it was in the Big Read Top 100 (BRT100), and is also on my list of 100 books you should read. I first tried reading Ulysses about a year ago: I got seriously bogged down in … Continue reading
Book Review: A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
Long and rambling, at times it draws you in, at times I felt I was struggling through a tar pit of irrelevant or tedious detail. It’s one of the longest novels ever published, and boy did it feel like it … Continue reading
Book Review: Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
Bleak House is a satire set around the 1830’s in and around London. It’s about a group of characters, who are tied together together, in some cases very loosely, by the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, a long-running court battle … Continue reading
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Book Review: Drawing Fire by Private Len Smith
Drawing Fire is the diary and drawings of a private who served in World War I. He signed up in September 1914, and served in France from sometime early in 1915 through to the end of the war. I heard … Continue reading
Footnotes not endnotes please!
One thing that’s annoyed me while reading the classics has been the use of endnotes in preference to footnotes. Books like Anna Karenina, War and Peace, and Crime and Punishment have a lot of endnotes, so I found myself running … Continue reading
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