I read this in January 2016, and goodness only knows how many years ago in my youth!
This is the Regency Book Club's choice for March 2016.
This was surprisingly easy to read, and still relevant today, conditioning, class system, our attitude to outsiders, those questioning the norm....I could see echos of 1984 and Anthony Burgess' The Wanting Seed and Logan's Run.
A future in which sex is just for pleasure not for procreation, test tube, state conditioned babies, everyone knowing their place.
Bernard is a Maverick, he and Lenina visit a 'Reservation' savages living the old ways and find a woman form their own world who was pregnant by the Controller when she got lost on a Reservation trip with him and had the child. They re-eenter 'society' as the mother Linda, knew it adn John the son was taught it . Neither could cope.
I recommend reading/rereading it...
9/10
Sunday 31 January 2016
Wednesday 20 January 2016
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
I read this January 2016
It was the Regency Book Club choice (us renegades from the Waterstones book club) for February 2016
I must say I enjoyed this little book, macabre but funny.
Sub titled An Anglo- American Tragedy...that about sums it up. Highlighting the differences between our 2 countries.
Set in the 1940's I'd guess, but a California full of Englishmen harping back to the old country and gentler times.
The hero Dennis Barlow ( a poet) works at A Happier Hunting Ground pet cemetery and after the suicide of a friend is propelled into the world of the American human cemetery Whispering Glades, with it strange rituals. He dates a corpse beautician, who in turn is loved by the embalmer... A classic of that old school style of British writing that micks the world of the posh and the apuper alike. I haven't read any Evelyn Waugh for such a long time, I was really glad this little book was picked. I hope the others like it as much as I did.
10/10
It was the Regency Book Club choice (us renegades from the Waterstones book club) for February 2016
I must say I enjoyed this little book, macabre but funny.
Sub titled An Anglo- American Tragedy...that about sums it up. Highlighting the differences between our 2 countries.
Set in the 1940's I'd guess, but a California full of Englishmen harping back to the old country and gentler times.
The hero Dennis Barlow ( a poet) works at A Happier Hunting Ground pet cemetery and after the suicide of a friend is propelled into the world of the American human cemetery Whispering Glades, with it strange rituals. He dates a corpse beautician, who in turn is loved by the embalmer... A classic of that old school style of British writing that micks the world of the posh and the apuper alike. I haven't read any Evelyn Waugh for such a long time, I was really glad this little book was picked. I hope the others like it as much as I did.
10/10
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd
I read this January 2016
I bought this ages ago at a summer fete because William Boyd had been asked to write a new James Bond. Reading this I can see why... it's very Bond like plot wise although the hero is far from Bondlike. An American (Climatologist) in London for a job interview. He happens to meet a man in a restaurant, who subsequent eaves a file there, He goes to the man's (a research in pharmacist developing a new drug) but finds the man has been fatally attacked. All that happens then on is a consequence of that visit. He goes underground, living rough, gets mugged, goes to a church for help, meets a policewoman....you name it , it happens pretty much...
I enjoyed this book
9/10
I bought this ages ago at a summer fete because William Boyd had been asked to write a new James Bond. Reading this I can see why... it's very Bond like plot wise although the hero is far from Bondlike. An American (Climatologist) in London for a job interview. He happens to meet a man in a restaurant, who subsequent eaves a file there, He goes to the man's (a research in pharmacist developing a new drug) but finds the man has been fatally attacked. All that happens then on is a consequence of that visit. He goes underground, living rough, gets mugged, goes to a church for help, meets a policewoman....you name it , it happens pretty much...
I enjoyed this book
9/10
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
I read this January 2016
It had been one I missed out on reading and was really pleased to pick up a copy on a charity shop recently.
I didn't know quite what to expect, I half suspected it would be a bit chick litish, but it wasn't at all. It's a thriller set on and around a daily train journey to London. The plot unfolds, each female character takes up the narration and we see the whole complicated story taken up by that characters perspective.
A tale of mental, physical and drink abuse that had me wanting to read on and on (very unusual for me) The is a film of it coming ot this year, I do hope they do this lovely book justice.
10/10
It had been one I missed out on reading and was really pleased to pick up a copy on a charity shop recently.
I didn't know quite what to expect, I half suspected it would be a bit chick litish, but it wasn't at all. It's a thriller set on and around a daily train journey to London. The plot unfolds, each female character takes up the narration and we see the whole complicated story taken up by that characters perspective.
A tale of mental, physical and drink abuse that had me wanting to read on and on (very unusual for me) The is a film of it coming ot this year, I do hope they do this lovely book justice.
10/10
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)