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Title |
Author |
Rating (1-10)
where 10 is unmissable! |
When published |
Comments |
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The professor of truth |
James Robertson |
7 |
2013 |
A fictional story that
uses the Lockerbie bombing for the base of the storyline. This is Professor
Alan Tealing's 18 year battle with grief and the search for the truth; not
necessarily for justice; but for a resolution. For the freedom to move on. |
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Sweet Tooth |
Ian McEwan |
6 |
2012 |
A book that somehow promises more than it
delivers. The first paragraph sets the stage for a drama and what follows is
a melodrama. It is, however, an interesting portrait of life was in 1972
London and of the role of women in the workplace - we have come a long way in
40 years. Actually it is the 40 years that are missing |
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Flight |
MR Hall |
5 |
2012 |
Coroner Jenny Cooper investigates UK
airplane accident. Its an airplane book - not a literary masterpiece. Fun
reading but immediately forgettable. |
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Indignation |
Philip Roth |
7 |
2008 |
Beautifully written, a story of chance,
fate and the failure of the great American dream. |
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Snowdrops |
AD Miller |
7 |
2011 |
A love story to Masha and to Moscow. I
thoroughly enjoyed this novel. |
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Ordinary Thunderstorms |
William Boyd |
6 |
2009 |
A choice made and a life changed and Adam
Kindred has to survive in a London underbelly that he has no experience of
but which will redefine him. I like William Boyd and the London settings
felt very authentic. |
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Waiting for the Sunrise |
William Boyd |
8 |
2012 |
Vienna, London, first world war spying.
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The Harbour |
Francesca Brill |
7 |
2012 |
Love and betrayal in wartime Hong Kong
(WW2). Soap opera. But sympathetically written and it captures Hong Kong
well. Have always been surprised that there are so few Hong Kong novels.
This is a welcome addition. |
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Simple Goalkeeping Made Spectacular |
Graham Joyce |
9 |
2009 |
52year old British writer gets called to
to play for England in the writers' football world cup in Italy. A must read
for anyone who has ever been a goalkeeper and dreamed of greatness. I was
reading this thinking - this should have been me. But I could never have
written with such humour and empathy. Loved it! |
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A World of Trouble |
Jake Needham |
8 |
2012 |
Bangkok, Hong Kong, Dubai all in one
crime novel. Political intrigue and smuggling in Thailand. A female Prime
Minister. And a former Prime Minister in exile in Thailand. Current affairs
in a novel. All solved by am American ex lawyer. Well part of the story had
to be implausible! |
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Vulture Peak |
John Burdett |
7 |
2012 |
The other American who writes Thai crime
novels. This is Burdett's fifth novel in the Sonchai Jitpleecheep detective
saga following Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo, Bangkok Haunts, The Godfather of
Kathmandu. This is back to form after two rather dull previous books. I do
like the way Burdett captures the rawness of Bangkok and the intricacies of
Thai relationships. |
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Amber Road |
Boyd Anderson |
5 |
2012 |
Spoiled Singaporean girl survives WW2.
Decent reading in its depiction of life during the Japanese invasion and
occupation of Singapore. But it is hard to find much to like about the
spoiled heroine of the story - Victoria Khoo - other than admiring her
survival skills as she makes it through to the last of nearly 600 pages.
Sort of like the Harbour but in Singapore rather than in Hong Kong and not
as good! |
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Golf on the Rocks |
Gary Sutherland |
7 |
2011 |
Lapsed golfer takes his dad's putter on a
tour of 18 Scottish island golf courses - and in so doing does what every
lapsed golfer dreams of doing. |
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The Garden of Evening Mists |
Yan Ywan Eng |
8 |
2012 |
The present catches up with the past in
this tale of wartime memories in Malaya |
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